


Divergent from Four's POV

by hatethesilence312



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 19:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 51,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1829362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatethesilence312/pseuds/hatethesilence312
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm transferring this work here from fanfiction.net<br/>It's just Divergent from Four's perspective starting in chapter 6 when he and tris meet.<br/>This is probably bad, I wrote it a few year ago, but since I am about to continue writing Insurgent, I'm going to start posting them here too</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Meeting

I cross my ankles over each other and wait for the first jumper to swallow their fear and jump.

"What faction do you think they'll come from this time?" Lauren babbles behind me. "I hope not another Erudite know-it-all."

Overhead, I hear a catcall, and then I see a gray blur falling down, towards us.

"Lauren."

She looks up and blinks. "Is that  _gray?"_

I watch the gray-clad person land in the net, her whole body being pushed into a ball from the force of the net. She says " _oof"_ and begins uncurling herself.

I reach out a hand to help the skinny Abnegation girl to her feet. Her fingers are cold as they wrapped around mine tightly. I pull her up and think about how our hands look like the Abnegation symbol, only with retired members of the faction.

"Thank you," she mumbles under her breath, her light eyes flashing up to my face. She is pretty, the tiny little thing. She is so petite that I think for a moment that she'd wound up here accidentally, or that they changed the choosing age. But after studying her for a moment, I note that her eyes held all the weight that can only come from years of sacrifice.

"Can't believe it," Lauren babbles some more, putting a stop to the bizarre way the transfer and I were gazing at each other, "A Stiff, the first to jump? Unheard of," She scuffs.

"There's a reason why she left them, Lauren," I say, sick of her nonstop chatter. I stare down at the girl. Her eyes are wide, young, but somehow aged, as though she carries endless years of secrets with her. "What's your name?"

"Um," she stammers, flustered, her eyes burning into mine.

"Think about it," I tell her, meeting her intensity with my own eyes.  _Who are you?_ The question bubbles to my lips. I bite it back, and instead say, "You don't get to pick again."

I watch the confusion drain from her expression, taking five stressful years with it, "Tris."

_Tris._

"Tris," I repeat, smiling a little at her,  _Tris the Dauntless._

"Tris," Lauren copies, interrupting yet another moment. "Make the announcement, Four."

Tris's eyes stay on me as I look at Lauren, "First jumper—Tris!" I call the name out proudly, as if she represents me in some way. Dauntless materialize from the darkness behind me, I can tell by the way Tris's eyes widen slightly. I hear the scream that symbolizes the next person has jumped. Tris looks over and smiles at the girl who lands. Lauren helps her out of the net, because I'm too distracted by Tris to make myself move away from her, towards the other initiate. Unthinkingly, I touch her back. Her eyes widen at my touch, but she doesn't flinch away like I'd expect and Abnegation girl to. My hand tingles. "Welcome to Dauntless."


	2. The Lunch

"Most of the time I work in the control room, but for the next few weeks, I am your instructor." My eyes slid around the group of transfers, pausing on Tris for just a few seconds longer than anyone else. "My name is Four."

"Four? Like the number," says an Candor girl from her place beside Tris. I remember that she was the second jumper.

"Yes," I meet her gaze evenly, a challenge. "Is that a problem?"

I can feel the fear in her response. "No."

"Good." This is exactly why I don't like to socialize with initiates. They don't have an ounce of respect for authority unless fear is present. "We're about to go into the Pit, which you will someday learn to love. It—"

The same Candor laughs, "The Pit? Clever name."

I briefly had to wonder at Tris's choice of friends. I walk over, putting my face very close to the girl's, narrowing my eyes. I could feel Tris's eyes on me, burning me, watching my expression with nervous eyes. Candor looks back at me, and I can practically smell her fear.

"What's your name?" I say, emotionless.

"Christina," she says in a high voice that vaguely reminds me of Lauren's earlier babbling. It gets on my nerves at once. "Well, Christina, if I wanted to put up with Candor smart-mouths, I would have joined their faction. The first lesson you will learn from me is to keep your mouth shut. Got that?"

Her head bobs up and down.

I turned around and continued walking. I could hear them following me.

I pushed open the Pit doors and stepped inside. I turned around and watched them file in behind me. I kept my eyes on Tris's face, watching her eyes widen and light up. She belongs here.

"If you follow me, I'll show you the chasm."

I walked out the door. I knew, technically, that nine pairs of eyes were on me, but I could only feel two specific eyes, and they belonged to Tris.

I suddenly feel like I am under inspection, and I fidget nervously.

"The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy!" I shout to be heard over the rushing water. "A daredevil jump over this ledge will end your life. It has happened before and it will happen again. You've been warned."

I take them in the cafeteria, and the Dauntless all greet us with applause. Tris smiles and I feel something in me flutter.

Christina and Tris go sit at a table, and I couldn't help it, I worked my way through the crowd, sitting down beside Tris. I abruptly feel giddy. Sitting next to her is exciting.

She picks up a burger and looks at it, confused. I press my elbow softly into her side. "It's beef. Put this on it." I hand her ketchup.

"You've never had a hamburger before?" Christina stares with wide eyes.

"Stiffs eat plain food," I say, remembering.

"Why?"

Tris shrugs her shoulders. "Extravagance is considered self-indulgent and unnecessary."

"No wonder you left."

"Yeah," Tris's eyes roll. "It was just because of food."

I bite back a smile.

It dies when Eric comes in.

Tris looks nervous as she watches him. It pleases me to see that she's more afraid of him than she is of me, and that was weird and confusing.

"Who's that?" Christina asks.

"His name is Eric. He's a Dauntless leader."

"Seriously? But he's so young."

"Age doesn't matter here," I say flatly.

Tris and Christina both seem to bite their tongues. Good. I hate questions.

Eric spots us and comes over, sitting down beside me.

"Well," He says after a moment of silence. Aren't you going to introduce me?"

"This is Tris and Christina."

His eyes raked over Tris like a predator seeing his prey. I felt sick. I didn't want his eyes on her.

"Ooh, a Stiff," he goes, his lips twitching into an evil smile. My hands clench into fists. "We'll see how long you last."

I found back an angry comment. I wanted to get in his face, to tell him to leave my Tris alone. Then I stiffened. My Tris? I just met the girl, what, half an hour ago? My Tris? I am certifiably insane. I have lost my mind.

"What have you been doing lately, Four?"

Losing my mind, I debated saying. Thinking about leaving Dauntless forever, "Nothing, really."

I could feel Tris's eyes on me, but I kept mine off her. I knew that whatever weird thing had happened to my brain was something I should keep away from her. But she was right beside me, practically radiating warmth. Maybe it wasn't warmth, though. She was radiating something, something that made me just want to put my arm around her shoulders.

"Max tells me he keeps trying to meet with you, and you don't show up. He requested that I find out what's going on with you."

First, I need to find out what's going on with me.

But I need more time with Tris and my initiates first.

"Tell him that I am satisfied with the position I currently hold."

"So he wants to give you a job," Eric muses. His eyes were worse than lasers, but I'd rather have him stare me down than look at Tris.

"So it would seem," I reply casually, but I keep my eyes locked on his, firm.

"And you aren't interested."

"I haven't been interested for two years."

"Well." Eric seems to finally notice that he isn't wanted in here. "Let's hope he gets the point, then." His hand slams down on my shoulder, and I resist the urge to yank his arm out of its socket, to punch his face in.

He walks away.

I see Tris notably relax. "Are you two ... friends?" She seems horrified by the thought.

"We were in the same initiate class. He transferred from Erudite."

"Were you a transfer too?" Tris's eyes are warm on me, so I meet her gaze.

"I thought I would only have trouble with the Candor asking too many questions," I hated to be so mean to her, but who was she, some little transfer girl, to question me and my past. "Now I've got Stiffs, too?"

I expected her to shrink back, to slump in her seat, her eyes to water. Instead her spine goes rigid, and her eyes narrow. "It must be because you're so approachable." Her voice is angry, and I see for the first time why she's truly here. "You know. Like a bed of nails," her fury surprises me.

I stare at her, ignoring the butterflies that were eating my stomach, keeping her eyes on mine. Tris is blushing now, as though the past few minutes just caught up to her brain.

"Careful, Tris," I said flatly. That attitude could get her in trouble. She's lucky it's just me and that I'm very confused when she's present.

"FOUR!"

I get up and go over to the other table silently, feeling her eyes on my back the whole time I walk away. It was like holding magnets close together, but not letting them touch. The pull is so strong, and you're just breaking it. And that's what it's like, for some unexplainable reason, when I try to move away from Tris.


	3. The Touch

"The first thing you will learn today is how to shoot a gun. The second thing is how to win a fight." I am giving each initiate a loaded gun. I feel my connection to Tris flare as I press a gun into her outstretched palm and keep going. "Thankfully, if you are here, you already know how to get on and off a moving train, so I don't need to teach you that."

I finish handing on guns, and I move back to the middle of the room, rocking back onto my heels.

"Initiation is divided into three stages. We will measure your progress and rank you in according to your performance in each stage. The stages are not weighed equally in determining your final rank, so it is possible, though difficult, to drastically improve your rank over time." I slide my eyes along the initiates, landing on Tris. She didn't curl her fingers around the gun, and she stares at it blankly.

"We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear. Therefore, each day of initiation is intended to prepare you in a different way. The first stage is primarily physical; the second, primarily emotional; the third, primarily mental."

"But what does firing a gun have to do with bravery?" The question comes from an initiate named Peter. He spoke mid-yawn.

I spun my gun around, clicking a bullet in place and pressing the barrel to his forehead. He stiffens, his mouth still open. "Wake—up. You are holding a loaded gun, you idiot. Act like it."

I drop my arm and keep going. "And to answer your question... You are far less likely to soil your pants and cry for your mother if you're prepared to defend yourself. This is also information you may need later in stage one. So watch me."

I turn and face a target. I know, logically, that all eyes are on me, but I can  _feel_ Tris's eyes, starting on my hands, sliding over my shoulders, down my legs, taking in my stance. It is almost like she is touching me, not looking at me. I can only imagine what it would feel like if she  _did_ touch me. My skin would probably burst into sudden flames.

I blink a few times, refocusing myself, and I tighten my hold on the gun. Breathe in, plant my feet; exhale, pull trigger.

I keep myself in place as the sound radiates through the room. I hear the initiates whining, but I ignore them.

The initiates take their turns, and the room is suddenly very loud. I walk back and forth, looking at each person carefully, trying to see if they have any problems I could assist them with.

Tris isn't doing well. The blow pushes her tiny body back. She stumbles and almost hits herself in the face. She seems very afraid of the weapon in her hands. An Erudite transfer—Will, maybe?—teases her a bit, but it seems friendly, so I don't feel like punching his face in like I do Peter. Finally, she hits the edge of the target, which is better than some of the others.

She fires a few more times, and finally hits center. Something warm and unexplainable goes through my chest, and I press my teeth into my lower lip to keep from smiling. She's doing well.

I don't sit with Tris at lunch. She's making friends, and it can't be good for whatever mental lapse I'm experiencing for me to continually go near her.

"As I said this morning, next you will learn how to fight. The purpose of this is to prepare you to act; to prepare your body to respond to threats and challenges—which you will need if you intend to survive as Dauntless." I try to keep my eyes moving through the people, trying desperately not to gaze at Tris like we're having a one-on-one lesson. I'm standing in the middle of the room, their eyes on me—Tris's eyes on me. I clear my throat. "We will go over technique today, and tomorrow you will start to fight each other. So I recommend that you pay attention. Those who don't learn fast will get hurt."

I begin showing them different punches, telling them the names, teaching technique. Once they begin, I go through them, all of them, and finally make my way to Tris.

She freezes, and her cheeks flush when I stop in front of her.  _What does_ that  _mean?_

I let my eyes run up and down her, looking for any trace of muscle she might be hiding somewhere. I can't help but wonder how she's going to fight anyone at all without any muscle.

"You don't have much muscle," I inform her, but  _clearly_ she already knows this. It doesn't matter whether or not her previous faction had mirrors. She has to realize she's tiny. I continue, trying not to sound as stupid as I did at first, "which means you're better off using your knees and elbows. You can put more power behind them."

And then I do something stupid—dangerous even. I touch her. I put my hand against her slender stomach, feeling her ribs against my fingertips  _and_ the heel of my palm. My heart seems to learn gymnastics, doing flips and summersaults, my stomach plunging to my feet. I can feel her heartbeat in my hand. It's racing. Her eyes are huge, locked on me. I can feel then burning right through me, seeing through all my pretenses, seeing the true me.

"Never forget to keep tension here," I manage to choke out. That was my reasoning for touching her—reminding her to tense her stomach.

It's practically impossible to take my hand away. I want to slide my hand alone her narrow waist, to pull her against my chest, to run my fingers through her hair, to tip her chin up with my fingertips, to lean in and softly press my lips to hers.

I turn and walk away from her, pushing my hands into my pockets and clenching them into fists. I'll have to talk to Eric about stepping down, I decide. I've lost my mind, and I'm a danger to have around the initiates.

"Four? Are you okay?"

I don't know how it happened, but instead of going to Eric, instead of telling him I want to step down, I went to Lauren.  _Lauren,_ of all people to choose from!

"No," I stare at her. "Can I come in?"

She steps back from her doorway, letting me in.

I went into her room, pushing my hands through my hair and pacing. "I'm losing it, Lauren, I'm  _losing_ it."

"Calm down. Do you want a drink? Are you drunk? Four..."

"I'm not drunk, I don't want a drink. I'm fine. No I'm not. I'm crazy." I stop pacing. "Lauren, if you lost your mind, would you quit your job?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Why do you think you lost your mind?"

"I'm obsessed. I'm entirely infatuated and it doesn't even make  _sense."_

"Slow down. What are you obsessed with?"

I ignore her and resume my pacing. "It  _doesn't_ make sense. She's so  _small,_ she's so  _vulnerable,_ it doesn't add up. Why? Why do I want to push every boundary set by her, by me, by Eric, by society?  _Why?"_

I stop pacing and look at Lauren, because she's smirking and I don't like her expression.

"It's a girl," She says, a small smile spreading across her face. "You like a  _girl."_

"I don't like anything," I reply, pacing again. "I'm psychotic."

"Who is it? Is she a transfer? Is that why you want to step down?"

"I-I don't even understand the turn our conversation has taken."

Lauren crosses the room and takes my hands in hers. I look at our hands and wrinkle my nose. I've never been fond of touching—Abnegation thing. Earlier today with Tris was just a bizarre mistake.

"You can trust me," She says. "I'm good at keeping secrets. Here, I'll tell you  _my_ secret, and you tell me yours, so we both have something to hang over the other's head."

"I-I don't have a secret. I'm confused, and insane."

"Eric and I dated a few times—secretly, of course. And I broke up with him. Okay. Now go."

"Go where?" I look at her blankly, not understanding this at all.

She laughs. "You are  _so_ not a girl, Four. Who were you talking about earlier?"

I press my lips together. "I—"

"You can trust me, Four."

I look at her. It has been so long since I've trusted anyone with anything important to me. But Lauren seems to think she understands my condition, so maybe she can help me. "Tris," I say. "Her name is Tris."


	4. The Realization

"Since there are an odd number of you, one of you won't be fighting today." I step away from the board and let my eyes go to Tris. I hope I'm not blushing.

I talked to Lauren for hours yesterday. It turns out that opening up to someone truly makes you feel better. As soon as I said Tris's name, I couldn't seem to close my mouth. I told her everything. I told her how it feels when she looks it me, how it felt when we touched, everything. And she stood there, smiling, like an idiot the whole time.

When I finished rambling, she looked at me and said, "Oh, man, Four, you've got it bad." And I asked her if I was insane. And she told me that there was nothing wrong with me. That it was normal, good, and totally teenage. She told me I had a  _crush_ on Tris. And then I went home and I thought about it. Never in my life, did I ever even think about a girl in any sort of romantic way. I was always busy getting away from my father. I didn't care about girls. But Tris isn't a girl. She's something different. And I care about her. And it's very dangerous. If the wrong person finds out, we're both screwed.

Tris is talking to Christina, and I watch them instead of the fight. I watch Christina fake a smile and waves at Molly, Drew, and Peter. I started out hating Christina, but now I think she might be a good friend for Tris. And Tris needs good friends. I watch the blush warm her cheeks, and think about how that skin would feel under my fingertips. I shake my head at myself. I never thought of myself as a hopeless romantic, but now that there's any sort of  _hint_ of romance in my life, I'm hopeless.

I tune back into the world, and hear Eric losing his temper. "Fight each other!"

"But... Is it scored or something? When does the fight end?" That's Al, a rather large initiate.

"It ends when one of you is unable to continue!"

I grind my teeth. "According to Dauntless rules, one of you could also concede."

I feel Tris look at me. Eric's eyes are shooting lasers at me, but Tris's gaze on my face is somehow warmer.

"According to the  _old_ rules," Eric snarls. "In the  _new_ rules, no one concedes."

I feel my body stiffen. "A brave man acknowledges the strength of others."

"A brave man never surrenders."

It's somewhat funny, how I knew exactly when Tris's eyes were going back and forth between me and Eric. I could feel the sudden warm, then the lack of it, the sudden chill, and then the warmth stays with me. My lord, I should really step down from my position if I'm going to be this distracted.

In the corner of my eye, I note that Tris is standing up straight, her eyes locked on me. It's comforting, like her way of saying she has my back, even though I know if a fight did break out between Eric and me, no one would intervene.

Then, all of a sudden, the pressure is off us, because the initiates began fighting again.

Tris's eyes leave me, and I suddenly feel cold.

Al wins the fight. I circle his name and take Will out of the room, to the infirmary.

I feel sick, leaving Tris under Eric's supervision, but I can't exactly baby her. She needs to learn to be brave and strong.

"Oh," The nurse says when we come in the infirmary. She hurries over and begins helping Will.

She asks me to stay, and I do. I tell her as much as I can about his injuries from what I saw in the fight, and then I turn and leave.

I push open the doors to the arena and stiffen. It's empty. They aren't there.

And there's no way Eric would just cancel fighting practice. He had to be doing something cruel. And I have a bad feeling in my stomach that it relates to Tris.

I begin going in circles all over, hoping there would be some sort of connection that would pull me to her. And there was.

It took a long time, but soon I made it to the chasm. My heart flew to my throat as I heard the rushing water.  _Tris._

By the time I found them, Tris was on the ground with Al and Christina, Eric looking pissed standing beside them, the initiates grouped around them. Christina was soaked, and her arms were shaking, her hands read.

This is why people like Eric should  _not_ be allowed to train other people. It's cruelty.

This time it was Christina, but what if it's Tris next time? What if she was dangling by her fragile arms over something so deadly? What if Tris can't handle it? What if Tris dies?

I would kill Eric. I would punch his face in and make him hang over the chasm. I would break his fingers one by one until he fell off and died.

It is imperative to my sanity and the safety of others that Tris stays safe.


	5. The Fight

I am writing names up on the board in the order Eric gave me. My hand twitches, and a line of chalk goes through the names I'd just written. For a moment, I don't care.  _Peter._ Eric paired  _Tris_ with  _Peter._ Is he out of his mind?

I sigh and erase the scribbled through letters with my index finger. Then I rewrote them and grudgingly wrote Tris's name next to Peter's. There's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

"Four." Eric's hand drops on my shoulders, and my teeth clench.

I reach up and wrap my fingers around his wrist, pulling it off me and dropping it at his side. "What can I do for you, Eric?"

"Relax!" He slaps my shoulder. "I just wanted to make sure you left the pairings as I had them. The transfers are on their way."

"Why would I change the pairings?"

"Well, we saw the way they went down yesterday. I was afraid you would try and go easy on them."

I shrug my shoulder. "They're here to learn."

They come in, then, and I lean against the wall. They see the pairings, and the first two—Molly and Edward?—and I settle in place.

I feel Tris glancing at me, and I keep my eyes trained on the fight. Last night, I'd lied in bed for hours, thinking of what it is exactly that made me want to run to the dormitory to check on her. I tried to sleep, I really tried. But when I closed my eyes, I saw Eric's eyes on her, like a cat digging its claws in a play toy. It made me sick.

The dull fight ends in Edward's favor. Then I allow myself to look at Tris. She pushes her palms down the fabric that covered her thighs, and I felt my own hands begin to sweat. Oh, no.

Peter grins at her. She turns a bizarre shade of green. I vaguely wonder what would happen if she threw up on him. Eric would probably make them fight before Peter could even get clean clothes on.

"You okay there, Stiff? You look like you're about to cry. I might go easy on you if you cry."

My hands clench into fists without my telling them to. I fold my arms, stuffing my fists under my biceps to hide them from Eric. It takes all my strength to keep myself from grabbing Peter by his neck and throwing him into a wall, pounding my fist into his face until you can't even recognize him anymore.

But this is Tris's fight, not mine.

He continues tormenting Tris until Eric snaps at them. Then things get bad.

Peter punches Tris's jaw, and I watch her eyes roll back a little.  _No._ Tris starts stumbling back, running away from him, practically. He gets in her way, and shoves his foot into her stomach. I feel my own stomach tighten in response. I feel myself shift forward, ever so slightly, and I force my shoulders to press into the wall again. Tris drops to the ground so suddenly that I didn't even see her fall. One minute she's standing there, bent forward, the air rushing from her lungs in a huff. Then all of a sudden she's on the ground.

 _Get on your feet!_ I slam my teeth down on my tongue to keep myself from shouting the words. I taste blood.

She climbs upward, but she isn't looking good.

His hand wraps around her hair, and punches her in the face. I feel the nausea that has been silently eating my stomach overwhelm me, and I taste the acid in my throat. His hand goes into her ribs and I swallow thickly so I don't throw up.

He pushes her to the ground, and I feel myself move away from the wall.

"Four?" Eric peels his hungry eyes away from poor Tris, to my green face.

"I feel sick." I turned and threw myself out the door, and into the bathroom. I stand, panting, in front of the mirror for a few seconds. My face is red and green and gross. But the magnet-like attraction that pulls me to Tris yanks at my chest, and I spin around and hurl myself back into the arena.

_"Enough!"_

The word flies out of my mouth before I can even think about what I'm doing. Tris is on the ground, her eyelids drooped, and all I can see is the whites of her eyes. My stomach churns.

Peter pauses with his foot pulled back, about to kick her in the face. I charge at him, grabbing him and throwing him effortlessly out of my way. Her eyes are closed now. I bend down and press my trembling fingers to Tris's neck, searching desperately for the pulse that I knew  _had_ to be there. I still felt the pull. She's alive.

I feel her pulse, too fast, suddenly stopping, and then racing, and then stopping, against my index finger. All eyes are on me and Tris, but I don't care, I don't care.  _I don't care._

I exhale. "She's alive," I say flatly, "barely."

I slide an arm under her knees, and the other very gently under her neck. I rise slowly, cradling her crumpled, broken body to my chest. I see the Candor girl—Christina—crying, her hands pressed to her face, over her mouth. There was a large guy by her side, looking revolted. I recognize him as Al. On Christina's other side is Will, the Erudite. He looks livid.

"You three," I call to her friends. "Win your fights and get down to the infirmary. She's going to need all the familiar faces she can get when she wakes up."

They all nod, baffled, and I rush toward the exit, spinning so I hit it just right so it opens without her bumping it.

I carry her to the infirmary, and the nurse looks up with wide eyes. I can only imagine. Here's the trainer, red and green, carrying a tiny girl, all black and red.

"Put her here." She immediately points to a cot, and I lay Tris down on it softly, stretching her limbs out carefully. "What happened?"

"Training," I say, shoving my hands into my pockets. Now that she isn't in my arms, I have nothing to do with them. "She was wrongly paired."

She nods, taking Tris's pulse. I watch the middle aged woman's lips move swiftly, counting.

"Are you able to give me any information about her injuries?"

"Her nose might be broken. She was punched—there was a lot of blood. There's most likely a lot of damage to her ribs, and maybe her jaw."

She nods, and I touch Tris's forehead lightly, with just my fingertips. Then I turn to leave.

"Now, wait a minute."

I turn to face her.

"Stay here. You never know if she'll wake up."

"Her friends are fighting and then coming—"

"Stay. I saw your face when you came through the door." A knowing smile works its way across her face. "My husband used to look at me like that."

"He doesn't anymore?"

She smiles, "Sometimes. You should really stay with her. If you don't, someone else will."

So I take a seat beside Tris, wrapping my fingers around hers.

Whenever her friends get here, I'll leave. But at least she won't be alone.

I won't leave her alone. As much as it confuses me, I've accepted that.


	6. The Fence

"Four. Four, wake up."

I let my eyes open a little bit. Lauren's standing over my bed.

"What? What are you doing in here?  _How_ did you get in here?"

"You didn't even lock your door. Is that safe?"

"I'm Dauntless, Lauren. I'm not worried about intruders."

"Well, I guess that also means you're not worried that Eric will fry your brain."

"What?"

"You're supposed to be taking the transfers to the fence today—"

I hurl myself out of bed, and begin shoving her out the door. "Thanks Lauren. Go! I need to get ready!"

"Wait!" She shoves her foot in the doorway before I can slam it. "How's your transfer?"

I glare. "She's not  _my_  anything."

"She could be. You're  _Four._ Take her somewhere, tell her you like her, kiss her, be her boyfriend."

I just sigh. "Thanks a million for the dating advice, Lauren, but Tris isn't like you or any other girl. The same things that work for most situations won't work on her. She's... special."

"Aw, that's so cute.  _You're_ so cute. And you're definitely boyfriend material.  _Ask Tris out."_

"Get away from here before someone hears you."

She grins and makes a kissy face at me, "Kiss Tris!"

I slam the door on her.

I pull myself into the train effortlessly, and watch as Tris is lifted in by Al. I watch this, and immediately regret trying to keep my eyes off of her. It's clear that she's still sore from yesterday. I should be the one with my arms around her, pulling her up, onto the train, having her stumble against me. But instead, it's Al.

After a while, I notice Al's face. I notice it because it's the same face I've been seeing in the mirror every night after training. I see the way he looks at Tris. It's the same way  _I_ look at Tris. I feel something in my stomach sink. Of course I'm not the only one who's noticed how wonderful she is. She deserves to be noticed. I plant my feet and lean mostly out of the train, feeling the wind plaster my shirt against me.

Then I hear them.

"Feeling okay there? Or are you a little  _Stiff?"_

I grind my teeth together so I don't say something I'll regret.  _Let Tris defend herself._

"We are all awed by your incredible wit," goes Will.

"Yeah, are you sure you don't belong with the Erudite, Peter?" Christina butts in. "I hear they don't object to sissies."

I smirk. "Am I going to have to listen to your bickering all the way to the fence?" I demand, and I feel the sudden warmth running up and down my body—Tris, looking at me.

The warmth leaves for a few seconds, and then returns. She does this multiple times, and something in me feels like flying. It doesn't matter that her peer, Al, was all over her, that Al was touching her, because she can't keep her eyes off me. And I'm not always comfortable with scrutiny, but with Tris it's different. This staring makes me want to go to her, to put my arms around her and tell her to ignore all their mean words, that she's better than all them. Other people staring makes me want to punch their faces in.

The train slows and stops. I climb down and say "follow me."

I guide them to the gate and then turn back to face them. "If you don't rank in the top five at the end of initiation, you will probably end up here. Once you are a fence guard, there is some potential for advancement, but not much. You may be able to go on patrols outside Amity's farms, but—"

"Patrols for what purpose?" Will, Tris's earlier defender, pops in.

I shrug. "I suppose you'll discover that if you find yourself among them. As I was saying, for the most part, those who guard the fence when they're young continue to guard the fence. If it comforts you, some of them insist that it isn't as bad as it seems."

"What rank were you?" Peter asks—demands, really. I narrow my eyes slightly at him, still hating him for what he did to Tris.

"I was first."

"And you chose to do  _this?_ Why didn't you get a government job?"

A government job would involve communication with my father, I think flatly. A government job would have meant I never would have met Tris. A government job would have entirely altered my life.

"I didn't want one."

Tris's eyes run up and down me, and I wonder what she sees. Does she see someone who belongs behind a computer screen, or shaking hands with the leader of Abnegation? Or does she see me as someone like Eric, someone cruel and brutal, someone who lives to see other suffer? Or does she see me as something entirely other?

A truck full of Amity pulls in.

"Beatrice?" A boy says, hopping out of the Amity truck and going over to Tris. I'm on edge at once.  _Beatrice._ It's not a bad name, but it doesn't suit her. I understand why she changed it.

He walks over to Tris, and then he  _puts his arms around her._

So far, the only time I've touched Tris was helping her off the net, touching her stomach, and carrying her unconscious, unresponsive body to the infirmary. I never  _hugged_ her.

"Beatrice, what happened to you? What happened to your face?"

I had barely noticed how marked up Tris was from her fight. I was just relieved to see her blood-free. Apparently, she looks bad.

"Nothing," She says quickly, "Just training."

"Look what we have here. Four."

I turn to the Dauntless guard with a gun slung over her shoulder. Her hair is pulled back into a French braid, and she smiles so big her eyes crinkle. Then I recognize her from my training.

"Emily! How are you?" Emily had narrowly avoided becoming factionless, so this was the only choice she had. I never really made good friends, but Emily was nice, and she was the closest thing to a friend I had, really.

She sighs and runs her fingers over the gun. "I'm alright. How about  _you?_ I can't get over it. You've got pets!" She gestures to the initiates.

I smile. "They aren't my pets."

"Please. Yes they are. You say jump, they jump."

"I thought that saying was  _you say jump, they say how high?"_

"Please. They won't talk back to the invincible Four."

I laugh a little.

"Since when are Dauntless friendly with Amity?"

I look over my shoulder, at Tris talking to the Amity boy. "That's Tris. She doesn't like following the rules." I sigh again.

Emily grins at me. "Yet you don't seem angry. You seem almost ... I don't know, concerned."

"It's not good for her."

"Since when do you care about what's good for people?"

"I have to. I'm training them."

"No, you don't have to. You're telling me that Eric cares about their well-being?"

I shrug. "Since when do I compare to Eric?"

"Back on topic, Four, come on. You  _like_ her."

Is it really that obvious? It still seems strange to me, but apparently, I wear my feelings for Tris on my face.

"I-I don't—I. I need to go. My-my initiates need me."

"Your pets need you." She smirks. "Don't be such a stranger from now on, okay? I'm not that hard to find, and I would like to on occasion have someone to talk to—whether or not we're talking about your special little initiate."

I just shake my head. "I'll see you around."

I turn around and walk over to Tris. I casually turn around. Emily is watching me out of the corner of her eye. Great.

I stop quite a bit away from Tris. "I'm worried that you have a knack for making unwise decisions," I tell her.

She immediately crosses her arms over her chest, defensive. "It was a two-minute conversation."

"I don't think a shorter time frame makes it any less unwise." My eyebrows push together as I notice what the Amity boy was talking about. My poor Tris is covered in bruises. Not  _my_ poor Tris, I correct myself. Poor Tris, just poor Tris. I unthinkingly reach out and touch her face softly. My fingers tingle. Tris flinches away from me, which makes something in my stomach churn, but I keep my hand there, following her with it, because she's like a drug to me, and touching her is giving me more of what I'm addicted to. I tip my head to the side, letting my eyes meet hers, causing my chest to warm, and I sigh. "You know, if you could just learn to attack first, you might do better."

"Attack first?" Tris gazes at me, and I'm just relieved that I'm still touching her, and she's not pulling away. "How will that help?

"You're fast. If you can get a few good hits in before they know what's going on, you could win." With a shrug, I let my hand drop.

"I'm surprised you know that, since you left halfway through my one and only fight," Her words are intended to be sharp, but her voice is soft.

"It wasn't something I wanted to watch."  _You have no idea how much it hurt to watch._

Her eyebrows push together, and I realize that while my feelings for her are alarmingly obvious to everyone else, Tris, my Tris, doesn't see it.

I clear my throat. "It looks like the next train is here. Time to go, Tris."


	7. The Ferris Wheel

I am walking with Eric and other Dauntless leaders to the initiate's dorm. In my head, I'm replaying Tris's fight.

She took my advice, which was good. She went right at the girl—Myra?—and she did great. It felt good to circle her name.

We go into the dormitory and Eric begins shouting at them. My eyes, immediately, find Tris's sleeping body.

She meets my gaze.

And we stay that way.

My heart pounds so hard I can hear it ringing in my ears, I can feel it in my fingers, my toes, my stomach, everywhere. I wonder if her body is doing the same thing mine is. She keeps her eyes on me, though, spreading warmth with every thundering beat of my heart.

"Did you go deaf, Stiff?" Eric roars the words at her, and she peels her eyes off mine, scrambling out of bed.

"You have five minutes to get dressed and meet us by the tracks. We're going on another field trip," Eric announces the words somewhat pleasantly, and I take another long look at Tris before we leave.

"I'm going to squash you like a bug," Eric tells me.

I glance at him, "In your dreams."

"Come on Four." Eric raises an eyebrow, which pulls roughly at his piercing. "You know you can't beat me."

I just roll my eyes and stop walking, where we wait for the initiates.

"Everyone grab a gun," Eric growls once they get here. I watch Tris. She seems excited, which is good. She needs to be uplifted.

"Time estimate?" Eric looks at me.

"Any minute now. How long is it going to take you to memorize the train schedule?"

"Why should I, when I have you to remind me of it?" He shoves my shoulder, and I grind my teeth.

I feel Tris's eyes on my face as the train pulls into view. I take off, and lift myself into the train, showing off a bit. I turn and see Tris right behind me. Unable to resist, I hold my hand on.

I expect her to ignore me, to try and get in without me. But she surprises me. Her hands wrap around my forearm, and I lift her right up, into the train. She releases me immediately, going to go sit as far away from me as she can. And this confuses me more than anything else. My arm still tingles from her touch. Why doesn't she want to talk to me? She has to feel this connection to, right?

I clear my head by waiting for everyone to get in, and then speaking up.

"We'll be dividing into two teams to play capture the flag. Each team will have an even mix of members, Dauntless-born initiates, and transfers. One team will get off first and find a place to hide their flag. Then the second team will get off and do the same." I have to grab the doorway to stay upright when the car sways. "This is a Dauntless tradition, so I suggest you take it seriously."

"What do we get if we win?"

"Sounds like the kind of question someone not from Dauntless would ask," I raise an eyebrow. "You get to win, of course."

"Four and I will be your team captains," Eric says. "Let's divide up the transfers, shall we?"

"You go first," I suggest, my eyes peeking at Tris. Her face is a mask of dread.

"Edward," Eric shrugged.

I lean back against the doorframe and nod. It didn't matter. I knew exactly who he wouldn't pick, exactly who I wanted.

My eyes run over them, but I'm not seeing them. "I want the Stiff."

I let myself look at Tris. She's blushing, probably because of their laughter, of my use of the word.

"Got something to prove?" Eric smirks. "Or are you just picking the weak ones so that if you lose, you'll have someone to blame it on?"

I shrug. He wouldn't understand. "Something like that," I go, "Your turn."

"Peter."

I think quickly. Christina is Tris's friend, and she's already had a bad run-in with Eric. "Christina."

"Molly."

I bit my thumbnail. I decide on one of Tris's other friends. "Will."

"Al."

There goes her last friend. I have to pick someone outside her small circle. "Drew."

"The last one left is Myra, so she's with me. Dauntless-born initiates next."

I don't care too much about these. I let my eyes wander over them, and I pick out the skinny, fast-looking ones.

Tris suddenly breaks into a smile so bright it makes my chest ache. Her hand flies up to cover her mouth. Her eyes are on me in between choices, and she follows my gaze. She must have realized my strategy.

"Your team can get off second," Eric tells us, his eyebrows arched, his lips pulled into a hideous smirk.

"Don't do me any favors." I think of my team, of our speed, and I smile. "You know I don't need them to win."

"No, I know that you'll lose no matter when you get off." He bit down on his piercings and I knew that  _had_ to hurt. "Take your scrawny team and get off first, then."

They begin getting to their feet. I watch Tris the whole time. She exchanges a look with Al, and she smiles, making me run my tongue over my teeth in anger. Why does he look so concerned? Does he really think I'll hurt her? She's  _Tris._

I jump out of the train and pause, turning and watching Tris almost get shoved out of it. Maybe  _that's_ why Al's concerned, I realize—not of what  _I'd_ do to Tris, what her peers would. That thought fills me with hate. How can they do this to her? What did she do to them? I turn and begin walking.

Fingers touch my shoulder. I know they aren't Tris's because nothing in me responds to their touch. My skin doesn't tingle, my heart doesn't race, my stomach stays in place. No, the only reaction I'm having is caused my Tris's eyes on my arm that the girl is touching. She's watching me.

Good.

"When your team won, where did you put the flag?" Marlene says, still touching me.

"Telling you wouldn't really be in the spirit of the exercise, Marlene." I try to make my voice kind and cold. I don't want to  _hurt_ the poor girl. I just want her to stop touching me.

"Oh, come on, Four," She bats her eyelashes and whines at me in a voice I recognize. It was the voice Lauren uses when she mocks me for liking Tris.

I brush her hand off me.

"Navy Pier," says a Dauntless-born who's name I don't bother trying to remember. I glance over my shoulder, meaning to look at him, and instead find my eyes on Tris. She's smiling, ever so slightly, and I remember feeling her eyes on me during my whole exchange with Marlene. "My brother was on the winning team. They kept the flag at the carousel."

I realize this must be Zeke's brother, Uriah. I look at him for a long time. He looks like Zeke.

"Let's go there, then."

I ignore the rest of their chatter as we walk. I don't have an interest. I keep my ears ready for my name or Tris's voice, but the only thing she says is about a Ferris wheel.

I pull the flag out of my pocket. "In ten minutes, the next team will pick their location. I suggest you take this time to formulate strategy. We may not be Erudite, but mental preparedness is one aspect of your Dauntless training. Arguably, it is the most important aspect."

The initiates begin going at it, and I sit down on the carousel. I feel Tris's eyes follow me as I do this, and I pull my own eyes up to the sky so she doesn't feel like I've been staring at her—which I have.

Her eyes stay on me, though. I feel the warmth of them travel down my arms, to my neck, to my gun. The warmth cuts off, and I guess she realized she was staring. I don't mind. For the first time in my life, I don't care about eyes being on me, as long as they're Tris's.

I can always feel Tris's presence, so I can feel it when she wanders off from the group. I stand, my eyes immediately moving around, looking for her. She's got her foot on a rung of the Ferris wheel, her hands stretched out above her, clinging to another one. I briefly worry about her sanity, and I push my gun across my back and go over to her.

"Tris," I try to make my voice slow, calming. I don't want her to do something stupid.

She turns and glances at me over her shoulder. "Yes?"

"I came to find out what you think you're doing."

Her eyes go cold. "I'm seeking higher ground," she says. "I don't  _think_ I'm doing anything."

That's my girl. She does whatever she wants. I smile, "Alright. I'm coming."

"I'll be fine," She replies. For a moment I wonder why she says this. Does she not want me to be near her, or does she think I'm doubting her ability.

"Undoubtedly," I say, because there isn't a doubt in my mind.

I wait until she's high enough that we won't be overlapping, and then I begin climbing. I catch up to her quickly, and I grab the next rungs as soon as her feet leave them.

Soon enough, though, I feel dizzy. I take a deep breath and decide to distract myself. "So tell me..." My voice is low, and I wonder if she hears how breathless I am. "What do you think the purpose of this exercise is? The game, I mean, not the climbing."

"Learning about strategy," She says confidently, not even slightly out of breath. The girl is good with heights, "Teamwork, maybe."

"Teamwork," I say, and a nervous laugh gets caught in my throat, which appears to be closing up.

"Maybe not," she amends. "Teamwork doesn't seem to be a Dauntless priority."

I watch the wind grab at her, and she pulls herself closer to the bars. She's making me sick. She's so small. The wind could take her so easily.

"It's supposed to be a priority. It used to be."

Her hand almost misses a rung. She seems to be slowly losing her cool. I, on the other hand, am ready to be taken safely down to ground level.

"Now tell me what you think learning strategy has to do with bravery." I can hardly get the words out of my swollen throat.

She talks, answering my question, but I can't hear her over the insane roaring in my ears. Her voice shifts, becomes concerned. "Are you all right, Four?"

I glance down and feel my heart threaten to climb up my throat. Yet Tris seems to be unaffected.

"Are you  _human,_ Tris? Being up this high ..." I try desperately to swallow to pull air into my lungs. "It doesn't scare you at all?"

She casually looks down. She doesn't even sway. Then the wind howls, catching her side, and yanking her, making her lose her grip. She gasps and begins clinging to the rungs.

My fear leaves my mind. I don't care that I'm up so high what I'm about to do could lead to my dead. I undo my grip on a rung and grab Tris's hip, pushing her back in place with all the strength left in my fear-stricken body. As if I wasn't already falling to pieces, my fingers find a trip of bare skin under the hem of her T-shirt and my heart lurches frantically, my hands begin shaking, burning where our bare skin meets.

I squeeze her him once she's settled in place, and I lower my hand back down to my run, which I cling to for dear life. "You okay?" I ask her carefully, quietly.

"Yes," she says, her voice strained and shaky. I can't hear fear in it though, and I wonder for a split second if that was her reacting to my touch the way I did to her.

After a bit longer of climbing, we finally reach a plat form. Tris immediately moves to the very edge, giving me room. I press my back to the support, panting, trying not to throw up.

Tris shifts,  _dangling her legs off the edge._

"You're afraid of heights," She says quietly. There's no harsh judgment in her voice. She's just stating a fact. "How do you survive in the Dauntless compound?"

"I ignore my fear," I tell her. "When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn't exist."

She stares at me, and I feel my overwhelming fear slowly leave me, her gaze replacing it with pleasant warmth. She doesn't take her eyes off me, and soon I wonder if there is a reason behind her staring.

"What?" I keep my voice soft, because speaking loud would ruin the moment.

"Nothing," She drags her eyes away from me, towards the city. I keep my eyes on her, though, as she does this.

"We're not high enough," she announces suddenly. "I'm going to climb." She gets to her feet, and I feel sick again.

"For God's sake, Stiff," I say though she has clearly proved she is anything but a Stiff.

"You don't have to follow me." Her eyes are calculating, looking up at the bars above us.

I pull myself to my feet carefully. "Yes, I do."

We begin climbing again, and then suddenly, Tris stops. She  _lets go of her rung_ and she  _points._

Now I'm extremely nervous, so I climb up until my feet are on the same rungs as her feet, my legs on either side of her, so if she falls back, at least she'll be falling against me, and not against the ground, plummeting to her death.

Since I'm so close to her, I can feel her shaking slightly. I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

"Yeah," I say, smiling. "It's coming from the park at the end of the pier. Figures. It's surrounded by open space, but the trees provide some camouflage. Obviously not enough," I keep smiling. The height means nothing now. The only thing I'm aware of is how close I am to Tris, and that her brilliance means we are going to beat Eric this year.

She turns her head to face me, and I stop breathing. We're so close that I'd barely have to move to kiss her. Her eyes are taking in my face, pausing on my lips, and staying there. Lauren's voice screams in my head.  _Kiss Tris!_

"Um," Her voice cracks. She clears her throat. "Start climbing down."

I nod and begin moving before I have time to something stupid.

As I'm climbing, I hear a screech, and I look up just in time to duck out of the way of the run that would have hit me in the head just moments ago.

Tris is dangling by her hands. "Four!"

My heart drops into my stomach, which is unfortunate, because my stomach seems to have sunk to my feet.

"Hold on!" I shout the words at her. "Just hold on, I have an idea!"

I climb down quickly, no longer caring about anything other than my Tris, dangling over her death. "Four," she cries out, absolutely breaking my heart.

Once I reach the ground, I race to the controls, pressing and pulling at random things, my hands shaking.

I hear the Ferris wheel groan in protest, and then it begins moving.

Tris is laughing as she is rapidly lowered to the ground.

And then she lets go at the perfect time, landing and rolling, just out of the way of a car.

She presses her hands to her face, and I move toward her quickly, crouching by her shoulder. I need to make sure she's okay. She needs to be okay.

I let myself touch her. I take hold of her wrists and pull her hands away from her face. I press her small, cold hand between both of mine, wanting to warm her up. "Are you alright?" I murmur, feeling how sore her fingers must be.

"Yeah," She says, and I can't help it. I'm giddy with relief. My Tris is leading us to the win, and she's okay. I start laughing.

She pushes herself up with the hand I'm not cradling. This movement closes up most of the distance between us. I want to kiss her more than anything. But if today's events proved anything, it's that Tris knows next to nothing about me. And she should know what she's getting into before I make any move on her.

So I end out moment, pulling her up to her feet, taking her back to the group. I pull her by her elbow, just happy that she's letting me touch her. Her face is flushed, a small smile on her lips, and she keeps glancing at my hand on her. But she's not pulling away, so I'm not letting her go.

Tris comes up with the plan. It works. Our team meets up, and Christina is waving their flag powerfully in the air.

Tris isn't a part of the chanting or celebration, and I go over and touch her shoulder. "Well done," I tell her softly. She smiles into my eyes.


	8. The Knives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Around this time on fanfiction.net I responded to a complaint about shifting tenses, so if that's happened, I'm sorry. Like I said, I wrote this a few years ago.

You should have kissed her."

I am still reeling. For some unexplainable reason, I told Lauren everything that happened yesterday.

"I couldn't."

"Why? Haven't you kissed a girl before?"

"That's beside the point."

"Oh my gosh, Four hasn't been kissed!"

I glare at her. "I told you. I don't typically like people, Lauren. Tris is a first."

"Well,  _I_ think it's cute. And since she's a sixteen year old girl from Abnegation, you can trust that she hasn't been kissed either. Unless that kid—Al, you said?—made a move on her."

I start coughing uncontrollably. "He better not have," I growl.

She laughs. "Go to your initiates already. At least one of them is  _definitely_ waiting for you."

I roll my eyes and I go into the training room.

As the last of the transfers shuffle in, Eric begins yelling at them.

"Tomorrow will be the last day of stage one," He shouts. "You will resume fighting then. Today you'll be learning how to aim. Everyone pick up three knives and pay attention while Four demonstrates the correct technique for throwing them."

Everyone stays still, so Eric roars "Now!"

I get in place and feel Tris's eyes on my arm as I throw the first knife. Then I feel her eyes on my legs, my face, my body as I throw the second one.

"Line up!"

I watch Tris. She doesn't actually use the knife. She pulls her arm back, and pushes it forward, but keeps her the knife in her other hand.

"I think the Stiff's taken too many hits to the head!" Peter mocks. "Hey, Stiff! Remember what a  _knife_ is?"

I grind my teeth. She ignores him, though, putting the gun in her throwing hand and practicing the throwing motion, just not releasing it. Then she does release it, and it smacks into the edge of the target. I smile.

"Hey Peter," She goes. "Remember what a  _target_ is?"

I grin.

But things aren't going so well with Al and Eric. I had been too lost in Tris, but now I realized that Eric was in the poor transfer's face.

"It-it slipped," Al stammers.

"Well, I think you should go get it."

I watch as the transfers stop throwing, waiting for him.

"Did I tell you to stop?"

They resume. Tris doesn't. Tris's eyes are locked on the scene, her jaw clenched.

"Go get it? But everyone's still throwing."

"And," Eric prompts, a challenge.

"And I don't want to get hit."

"I think you can trust your fellow initiates to aim better than you."

"No."

I run my hand over my face.  _Oh, no,_ I think.

"Why not? Are you afraid?"

"Of getting stabbed my an airborne knife," Al shoots back, "Yes I am!"

"Everyone stop!"

Oh lord. Here it goes.

Tris tightens her hand around her dagger, and for a fleeting moment, I'm afraid that she's going to stab Eric.

"Clear the ring," Eric roars, "All except you."

Then she drops the knife. It hits the ground, and she leaves with a look of dread on her face.

"Stand in front of the target."

I know Eric, and I know his aim isn't nearly as good as you'd assume with his attitude. I know he's going to involve me.

"Hey, Four," He says to prove my point, "Give me a hand here, huh?"

I scratch my eyebrow with the tip of a knife, feeling Tris's eyes follow the movement. Her eyes trace down my face, under the shadows on my eyes, to my lips. I try not to shiver.

"You're going to stand there as he throws those knives," Eric tells Al, "until you learn not to flinch."

"Is this really necessary?" I try to sound bored, but my body is rigid. I can see myself in Al's position, my father hurling the steak knife at my head, my hands covering my sobbing, six year old face. My mom, crying, and screaming at him to stop from the corner of the kitchen, my dad turning to scream at her, her cowering back into the counter. It was a bad night. The next day, my mother left us while he was at work. I come back into the present moment, and glare at Eric, challenging him.

"I have the authority here, remember?" Eric taunts me, and my jaw clenches. "Here, and everywhere else."

I feel my face turn red. He was threatening my position. And I know I can't get fired, I can't leave Tris here with Eric as her only trainer. I'd lose my mind.

So I clench my hand tighter around the knife and turn to face him. He can trust that my aim is safe, though, a privilege I didn't have when my father threw the knife at me.

" _Stop it!"_

The voice sends chills down my spine. This was all too familiar. Someone innocent is a target; a girl who is helpless is trying to stop it. The only difference is that I'm the monster throwing the knives now.

I turn to face my naïve little girl, turning the blade between my fingers. I glare at her, begging her to stop talking. Her eyes twitch between my eyes and the knife.

"Any idiot can stand in front of a target," She says fiercely, standing up for a friend in danger, something my own mother never had the courage to do. My heart pierces. "It doesn't prove anything except that you're bullying us. Which, as I recall, is a sign of cowardice," her eyes are enraged.

I want to tell her to stop, that she's being stupid, that she should never even open her mouth in Eric's presence.

"Then it should be easy for you," He snarls, "If you're willing to take his place."

Tris raises her chin and begins through the ground.

"There goes your pretty face," Peter hisses. "Oh, wait. You don't have one."

I run my tongue over my teeth and resist the urge to beat him to a pulp. She is more than beautiful.

Her eyes focus on the knives, then confidently on my face. She trusts me. She knows I'd never hurt her. She has to know.

"If you flinch, Al takes your place," I tell her firmly, slowly, trying to ignite her Abnegation, to make her brave. "Understand?"

She nods.

I keep my eyes on hers as I pull my arm back. I just hope that she doesn't make me so flustered that I miss and hit her.

_No. I will never hurt her._

I throw the knife. She doesn't flinch. Her eyes follow the knife and she exhales, closing her eyes.

"You about done, Stiff?" I want her to realize how important it is that she does this, that she doesn't flinch. Eric doesn't need more ammunition to torture her.

"No."

"Eyes open, then." I touch between my eyebrows. I know that I don't actually need her to look at me, it doesn't change anything, but I need to feel her gaze, I need to know she trusts me, that she is important, and that I need to do this.

Her eyes stay on mine the whole time I throw the next one. It hits above her head, but she doesn't look for it. She keeps her gaze on mine.

"Come on, Stiff," I say, knowing Eric is greedily watching our interactions. I know he thinks I'm going easy on her. He can't know I love her.

My stomach sinks. I just admitted to  _loving_ Tris— _loving_ her. Even though I'm the only one in my head, I feel like I just plastered the words on my forehead. I have to be wrong, though, because I hardly know her. I don't know  _anything_ about her. And she doesn't know me.

"Let someone else stand up there and take it," I tell her.

Her eyes turn hard. "Shut  _up,_ Four!"

I have to hit her. I have to. Eric knows I wouldn't take this from anyone else. He knows. and it'll be like stabbing myself, but I'll do it.

Her eyes follow this knife, and she freezes as it hits right next to her head, catching the very edge of her ear.

But she didn't flinch.

She touches her ear and looks at me. I give her an ' _it was necessary'_ look.

"I would love to stay and see if the rest of you are as daring as she is, but I think that's enough for today," Eric says calmly, and I feel a giant weight lift off my shoulders. He goes over and  _touches_ her. I feel like I'm going to get sick. "I should keep an eye on you," he tells her. He lifts his hand from her and walks away.

Tris doesn't leave with other people, and I'm glad. I go over to her, lifting my hand, intending on examining her ear, to see if I made a deep wound, "Is your—"

She moves away from me. "You did that on  _purpose!"_ She roars the words at me and I just look at her.

"Yes, I did. And you should be thanking me for helping you."

I can hear her grind her teeth. " _Thank_ you? You almost stabbed my ear, and you spent the whole time taunting me! Why should I thank you?"

"You know," I say, growing irritated, "I'm getting a little tired of waiting for you to catch on!" I glare at her.

She stares into my eyes, and butterflies take that as their cue to start eating me from the inside out. "Catch on? Catch on to what?" She is seething, "That you wanted to prove to Eric how tough you are? That you're sadistic, just like he is?"

Her words are a low blow, and I wonder how she knows exactly what to say to rip me apart. "I am not sadistic." I lean in close to her. She doesn't flinch away. "If I wanted to hurt you, don't you think I would have already?"

I turn away from her, frustrated, and I slam a knife into the table, handle up. I push open the door and head out. I freeze outside the door, because she lets out an angry scream that shreds me to pieces.


	9. The Meltdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you want a reference to as where we actually are in the book, this is chapter 14

 

"So you didn't even apologize for stabbing her ear with a knife?" Lauren stares at me.

"I wasn't in the wrong. I  _had_ to."

"It doesn't matter if it was necessary. You stabbed the girl you love with a  _knife."_

I shrug, looking away. "I don't know."

Lauren grins. "I just accused you of loving her, and you didn't even defend yourself."

I glare at her and get to my feet. "I need to shower and get to the initiates."

"You need to shower and get to  _Tris."_

"Lauren."

"What? Oh, and you owe me, by the way."

"I owe you."

"Yes. If it didn't volunteer to take on the Dauntless-born initiates, you would have gotten them, and Tris would be mine."

"And you'd be dealing with Eric."

"Call it even."

I grin and turn to leave. "Goodbye, Lauren."

The final fights are today. I'm in the training room, writing pairings on the board. I can physically feel her presence when she comes in. I don't even have to see her.

I can feel her eyes on me as I write her name, and write her pairing beside it. Molly. If Tris does everything right, she can take her.

The first fight is boring. I almost freeze mid-yawn when I feel Tris looking at me. I lean back, pushing my shoulders against the wall and try to keep my eyes off her.

The other fights aren't of much interest, either. But lastly, finally, it's Tris's turn. I'm alert at once. She can do this. She has to.

There's something different in her face, though. There's pain in her eyes, and anger set in every other inch of her. Her shoulders are tense, her mouth pressed into a firm line.

"Was that a birthmark I saw on your left butt cheek?" Molly smiles at Tris, and I feel my stomach lurch. "God, you're pale, Stiff."

Molly lunches. Tris ducks, and her fist slams into Molly's stomach. Tris slides around her and raises her fists. Tris blocks the punch that follows with her forearm. She doesn't even cringe. She dodges a kick, and tries to elbow Molly in the face. Molly moves back and gets Tris in the stomach.

Tris seems to stop and think. Then her fist goes upward into Molly's stomach. Not letting her recover, Tris swings Molly's legs out from under her. Molly hits the ground.

I expected Tris to walk away now. But she doesn't. She kicks Molly, over and over, her face contorted. This was more than just training. Something must have happened. Tris is enraged.

I go over to her and grab her arms, and begin dragging her away from the bloody disaster that happens to be Molly. "You won," I tell Tris, "Stop."

Tris pulled out of my arms and wipes sweat of her forehead. The rage is slowly draining from her features as she looks at me.

"I think you should leave," I tell her. "Take a walk."

She takes a deep breath, and I see the energy leave her eyes. "I'm fine, I'm fine now."


	10. The Nightmare

"Tobias!" Marcus's voice echoes through the small Abnegation house, and I cringe. "TOBIAS EATON!"

Marcus comes into the family room and grabs me by the front of my gray shirt, heaving me off the couch.  _"You answer when I call you!"_

His screech is loud, and I flinch. The hand that isn't holding me a foot of the ground wraps around my chin and yanks my head back so I have to look at him. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

I start crying.

"YOU ANSWER WHEN I TALK TO YOU!"

I'm shaking, trembling, and Marcus throws me to the ground, grabbing my by the neck of my shirt and drags me towards the stairs. I start crying harder. "N-n-no, p-p-please," I sob.

He yanks me roughly up the stairs, tearing open the closet door and shoving me into it.

"Please," I beg.

He slams the door, and I hear the lock click into place.

I begin trembling, air not coming through my lungs enough. I try stretching out, my limbs all shoving at the walls of the too-small closet before collapsing to the ground. I wrap my arms and knees around myself and cry. Soon the air stops coming. I can't breathe. I'm choking. I'm dying. I begin pounding on the door, begging. The door opens, and I fall out of the closet, sobbing, onto the ground. Marcus yanks me up by my collar and throws me into the wall. He has the belt in his hand. He pulls his arm back. I cringe into the wall, throwing my arms over my head...

"This is for your own good," he hisses.

The arm and belt fly toward my face.

I flinch and sit upright in my bed. I'm drenched from head to toe in sweat, and I press my hands to my face, my teeth clenched. I breathe deeply through my mouth as my shoulders shake.  _That'll never happen to you again,_ I try to reassure myself. I'm save now. I'm safe here. And I know how to defend myself.

Marcus will never touch me again.

I get out of bed and take a shower. The cold water helps to wake me up and clear my head. I get dressed and quickly brush my hair. I'm late.

It's visiting day. I'm never quite sure how to feel about this day. Actually, that's a lie. I hate this day. There's always a risk that Marcus will show up. Of course he  _won't—_ in Abnegation, I'm portrayed as the flighty son who took after his mother and abandoned his father, while Marcus is practically some saint. He doesn't need to visit me. They all love him anyway.

But today is a very crucial day in Dauntless. There are more suicides today than any other time. The loneliness, the desperate need for family, drives them crazy.

It's my job to watch the chasm, to make sure no one hurls themselves off it. So I go stand at the chasm, leaning against the railing. I think of Zeke and his brother. They get to spend the day at home with their parents—the plus of being a Dauntless-born with good parents.

I gaze out over the water, letting my mind wander. I think about my choosing day, about how everyone gawked when I chose Dauntless, about Marcus's eyes followed me.

"There's one of my instructors," Tris's voice says behind me, and I stiffened. How did I not feel her show up? I can feel her now, feel the sparks pulling my body to hers, and feel her eyes on my back.

I hear a woman's voice say something back, hushed, and I freeze. Who would be with her?

I glance over my shoulder and I feel shock take over my face. She looks like Tris, in a strange way, and I know she has to be her mother..

"Hello. My name is Natalie," She offers me her hand. "I'm Beatrice's mother."

I take her hand carefully and shake it. She's small, much like Tris. Unlike Tris, though, I'm worried about breaking her.

"Four. It's nice to meet you."

She smiles sweetly. "Four. Is that a nickname?"

"Yes." I quickly change the subject. "You're daughter is doing well here. I've been overseeing her training."

"That's good to hear. I know a few things about Dauntless initiation, and I was worried about her."

I look at Tris, and let my eyes move from hers down to her nose, then her lips, then her chin. "You shouldn't worry," I say, still looking at Tris.

Tris blushes. It makes the air around me warmer. I suddenly feel overheated.

"You look familiar for some reason, Four."

My heart drops to the soles of my feet. Of course she recognizes me. I grew up across the street from her. For sixteen years, she saw glimpses of me whenever Marcus let me out of the house.

"I can't imagine why." I feel the coldness enter my voice. "I don't make a habit of associating with the Abnegation." That's not entirely a lie. After I left them, I've stayed as far away as I could.

Natalie laughs. "Few people do, these days," she says, and I feel bad for my coldness. She seems nice enough. "I don't take it personally."

I want to leave before they can discuss it anymore. "Well, I'll leave you to your reunion." I turn and leave. I feel Tris's eyes on my back as I walk away. My heart hammers the whole time.

"For those of you who just came in, I'm explaining how the ranks are determined. After the first round of fights, we ranked you according to your skill level. The number of points you earn depends on your skill level and the skill level of the person you beat. You earn more points for improving and more points for beating someone of a high skill level. I don't reward preying on the weak. That is cowardice." I let my eyes fall onto Peter and I hope he feels the weight of my words.  _Keep bothering Tris like that, you coward. We don't want you here._

"If you have a high rank, you lose points for losing to a low-ranked opponent."

Molly makes a demented noise. She realizes that losing to Tris will hurt her.

"Stage two of training is weight more heavily than stage on, because it is more closely tied to overcoming cowardice. That said, it is extremely difficult to rank high at the end of initiation if you rank low in stage one."

I look over at Tris. She's rocking around on her feet. getting on her tip toes. She finally meets my gaze, and then she realizes I am looking at her and she blushes and looks away.

"We will announce the cuts tomorrow. The fact that you are transfers and the Dauntless-born initiates are not will not be taken into consideration. Four of you could be factionless and none of them. Or four of them could be factionless and none of you. Or any combination thereof. That said, here are your ranks." I hang the board and step out of the way.

The room goes silent.

"What?" Molly jabs a finger at Christina. "I beat her! I beat her in  _minutes,_  and she's ranked  _above_ me?"

"Yeah," Christina grins and folds her arms. "And?"

"If you intend to secure yourself a high rank, I suggest you don't make a habit of losing to low-ranked opponents." I put the chalk in my pocket and turn to leave.

"Tobias." Marcus walks toward me. I'm standing at the chasm railing again, and this time Marcus is walking toward me. I cringe back, my hands wrapping around the railing for support.

"Tobias, you left me." His voice sounds calm, but there's a storm brewing under it. "That wasn't smart of you."

"You can't hurt me anymore," I tell him, my hands falling from the railing, clenching into fists. "I'm stronger than you."

"Are you, son? Are you really stronger than me?"

I squeeze my eyes closed.  _Yes._

Then I feel hands on my shoulders. I'm being pushed.

Marcus shoves me over the railing.

I scream, my hands reaching out to catch the bar. I cling to it for dear life.

"You're stronger than me?" Marcus lets out a laugh. "Wake up, Tobias."

He kicks my hands. I can feel my fingers breaking. Tris appears over his shoulder, her eyes wide.

"Four," she yells. She starts running toward me. She's too late. I'm slipping.

"FOUR!"

I shoot up in my bed, my head slamming into someone's. My hands clench into fists and I hurl myself to my feet, ready to attack.

"Ow! God, Four!" Lauren stands in front of me, massaging her head.

"Why are you in my room?" I shout, massaging my temples with my fingers. I'm covered in sweat again, and my arms ache, like I was just hanging for my life.

"Something happened with your initiate." She begins massaging her own head, the one I accidentally head-butted.

I immediately think of Tris. My heart stops. I grab her shoulders. "What happened?"

"Not Tris," She says, and I drop my hands. "Edward."

"What happened?"

"Stabbed in the eye," She sighs. "He and Myra quit."

"How are the other initiates holding up?"

She shrugs. "Last I checked, Tris and Christina were cleaning and everyone else just kind of wandered—in shock, I suppose. We don't know who did it."

I slam my teeth down on my lower lip so hard I could taste blood.

"You know, don't you?"

"I have a general idea."

She raises an eyebrow.

"Peter."


	11. The First Fear

"Lynn," I open the door and gesture for her to come. She gets up and comes over to me.

I hold the door for her and come in after her. "Take a seat."

She sits down on the seat and plays with her piercings. "What is this?"

"Fear," I tell her. "The simulation will make you experience one of your worst fears until you can get your heart rate slowed and your breathing even. It's all about keeping a clear head." I pick up a needle. "I'm going to inject serum your neck."

She tips her head to the side and I inject her carefully before walking to my computer. I begin attaching electrodes to myself.

She goes into the fear and I sigh. People dressed in black are grabbing her arms, lifting her off her feet, carrying her somewhere. She starts screaming and kicking, her heart rate accelerating wildly. I shake my head.

After twenty minutes of her useless sobbing and shaking she finally seems to remember what I said, and she clenches her hands into fists and stops screaming. A moment later I begin detaching the wires. She's waking up.

I walk over to the chair and wait. She opens her eyes and starts throwing punches. I dodge a few and then grab her wrists and pin them down. "Lynn, come on. Snap out of it."

She blinks and starts shaking and crying.

"That was horrible."

"I know," I said quietly. "You can go back to the dorms through the back door."

She nods and I help her to her feet. I guide her to the door, and she leaves, rubbing at her eyes. "Four?"

I raise an eyebrow.

"Will it always be so bad? Will I always feel so terrified?"

"Sometimes you get past fears, sometimes you don't. I can't tell you for sure what will happen to you."

She nods and rubs at her eyes. "I'll see you around, I guess."

I nod and watch her leave. Then I turn and go push open the door. "Peter."

Peter comes into the room and looks at the chair. He makes no effort to get in it, though.

"Go on, sit."

"What is this?"

"A fear simulation—we make you see one of your worst fears. You have to calm your heart rate and breathing in order to get out. Sit."

"I don't—"

"I don't care. Sit."

He walks over slowly and sits in the chair. I pick up the needle.

"What is that for?"

"This is how you get put in the simulation."

"I don't—"

I stab his neck and push the plunger, fast. He flinches and I pull the needle out. "Enjoy. Keep your heart steady."

I quickly attach my own wires again and I wait.

Peter's running through the Candor compound, going somewhere—he's running with a purpose. He bursts through a door to a house, and I note that it looks nothing like Abnegation.

There's a thumping upstairs, and he runs. A young girl is tied up in a pink bedroom, her wrists and angles bound together and tied to a wooden chair. She's got duct tape over her mouth.

Peter frantically runs to her, and pulls the tape off her mouth. "Hey, it's okay, shh, where's Mom?"

He hears the sound of a bullet clicking into place and a man points a gun at the girl's head.

"What is going on? Get away from her!"

Peter lungs, trying to reach her, but there appears to be an invisible shield. He can't reach her.

The man shoots.

Peter screams and collapses to his knees, crawling across the floor, still trying desperately to reach the girl. Her eyes had rolled back into her head, and there's a bullet wound in her forehead. She was dead.

Peter is still screaming.

I wait impatiently for him to relax. I don't know who she is, or why he's reacting like this, but I know we've been in here for a long time and I want out.

In just under a half hour, Peter managed to stop sobbing and dry heaving on the floor and he fell back against a purple wall and gazed emptily at the carpet. A moment later, I came back to the room. I quickly take off the wires and turn to him.

His bloodshot eyes open, and his whole body jerks forward into a sob.

I wait.

And wait.

Finally he rubs at his eyes and throws his feet over the edge of the metal chair. "That," he says slowly, "was pure cruelty."

"Who was she?"

His head snaps up and his eyes widen.

"You-you can't tell anyone about that."

"I know. I can't. But who is she?"

His eyes slide away from mine, "My sister."

"Is she still in Candor?"

"No. She's dead." He gets to his feet.

"Peter, I—"

"Don't say you're sorry. I don't want your pity. How do I get out of here?"

I lead him to the back door and tell him how to get back to the dorm. He leaves wordlessly.

I don't pay much mind to anyone else's landscapes, mostly because I accidentally felt bad for Peter, and I don't want to feel bad for anyone else.

Then it was Tris's turn.

"Come on, Tris."

She gets up and walks toward me, jumping over Drew's foot at the last second when he tries to trip her. I put my hand on her shoulder and guide her in. Technically, there's no need for my hand. I know that. It's a doorway. She can get through it all by herself. But I  _want_ to touch her, and here's my perfect opportunity.

I close the door behind us, and she flinches, her thin shoulders pressing into my chest as she leans as far away from the metal chair as she can get.

"Sit." I put my hands on her arms and squeeze gently. I nudge her forward.

"What's the simulation?" I can hear her trying to remain calm, which is good. Good practice for what's coming.

"Ever hear the phrase 'face your fears'? We're taking that literally. The simulation will teach you to control your emotions in the midst of a frightening situation." For the first time all day, I use the explanation I was told to use.

She touches her head and sits in the seat carefully, like if she moves too fast it might attack her.

"Do you ever administer the aptitude tests?"

"No. I avoid Stiffs as much as possible," I tell her flatly. I'd be at great risk of being recognized if I did that.

"Why?"

I almost flinch at her nonstop questionnaire. "Do you ask that because you think I'll actually answer?"

I hated to be harsh to her, but she's strong. My words, my attitude, all of it will bounce right off her.

"Why do you say vague things if you don't want to be asked about them?"

I ignore this, reaching out and gently sweeping her hair into my hands off to her shoulder, letting my fingertips brush against the soft skin at the back of her neck. A reasonable person would have asked her to move it herself, but I'm yet to rule out the possibility of my impending insanity.

I tap the syringe and she turns to look at me.

"An injection?" Her eyes widen, and for a minute I think  _dear Lord, don't let_ needles  _be one of her fears._

"We use an advanced version of the simulation here; a different serum, no wires or electrodes for you."

"How does it work without wires?"

 _Curiosity killed the Tris_ , I think sourly. "Well,  _I_ have wires so I can see what's going on. But for you, there's a tiny transmitter in the serum that sends data to the computer."

She's turned her arm up to offer me the underside of her elbow, so I reach out and flip her arm over. I carefully ease the needle into her neck. She winces as I inject her, and it kills me to know I'm deliberately causing her pain. Her eyes stay glued on my face, though, so I wear a calm mask.

"The serum will go into effect in sixty seconds. This simulation is different than the aptitude test. In addition to containing the transmitter, the serum stimulates the amygdala, which is the part of the brain involved in processing negative emotions—like fear—and then induces a hallucination. The brain's electrical activity is then transmitted to our computer, which then translates your hallucination into a simulated image that I can see and monitor. I will then forward the recording to Dauntless administrators. You stay in the simulation until you calm down—that is, lower your heart rate and control your breathing." I feel almost out of breath. That's the most talking I've done all day—a bunch of nervous babbling to Tris, who probably didn't understand most of it.

She appears to be freaking out. I move forward and plant my hands on either side of her head—I can't help myself. I'm dying to offer her some sort of comfort. "Be brave, Tris. The first time is always the hardest."

Her eyelids flutter closed and I quickly attach myself to the computer and watch.

Tris is in a field of some sort. A crow lands on her shoulder and she swats at it. Then she turns and looks at it, and begins attacking it, crying out when it sinks its stupid talons into her. Her head lifts up and her eyes fill with dread as a whole flock of crows begin flying at her.

She flails her arms and sobs as they all land on and peck at her. She's bloody and sobbing and calling out for help, and I'm  _watching_ and I feel sick to my stomach because I can't help her.

She lays down, stretching and breathing through her nose. I feel a sense of pride. My words rubbed off on her. I glance at the clock in the corner. Barely two minutes has passed. That's my girl.

The simulation begins to fade just when the clock shows her third minute in. I pull off the electrodes and wait. Her eyes fly open, filled with fear, and she curls into a ball and begins sobbing.

I unthinkingly reach out and touch her shoulder—the same shoulder birds were tearing at moments ago. She flings a fist out and hits my stomach. It doesn't really hurt, and I can only understand her pain—fear landscapes are rough.

"Don't touch me," she sobs.

I ignore her and stroke her hair softly. "It's over."

She's now trying to rub off birds that aren't there. "Tris."

"Tris, I'm going to take you back to the dorms, okay?"

Surely, Drew would notice if I called him in just three minutes after I called Tris in, when everyone else had to wait half an hour. She doesn't need a larger target on her back. I tell myself  _that's_ the reason I'm going to walk her back, but I know it's not.

"No!" She looks at me through teary eyes. "They can't see me...not like this..."

"Oh calm down," I roll my eyes at her, trying to put off a joking attitude to calm her down. "I'll take you out the back door."

"I don't need you to..."

I think for a minute about letting her walk alone and stalling time here, by myself.

"Nonsense," I take her arm and pull her up.

She walks with me for a while before yanking her arm from me and turning her eyes to mine. Her face is full of betrayal, and I almost feel guilty.

"Why did you do that to me? What was the point of that, huh? I wasn't aware that when I chose Dauntless, I was signing up for weeks of torture?"

I think back to when I was in her position, the way I'd felt when I sat down in that chair only to have the man I'd run from come back for me. "Did you think overcoming cowardice would be easy?"

"That isn't overcoming cowardice! Cowardice is how you decide to be in real life, and in real life, I am not getting pecked to death by crows, Four!"

She sobs into her hands, and for a minute, I'm bitter. My first fear  _was_ realistic. For God's sake, my first fear was my childhood.

"I want to go home," she mumbles.

I stare at her, and wait for this little tantrum to end.

"Learning how to act in the midst of fear is a lesson that everyone, even your stiff family, needs to learn. That's what we're trying to teach you. If you can't learn it, you'll need to get the hell out of here, because we won't want you."

"I'm  _trying_. But I failed. I'm failing."

I sigh.  _Failing?_ No. I would never allow that. "How long do you think you spent in that simulation, Tris?"

"I don't know. A half hour?"

"Three minutes. You got out three times faster than the other initiates. Whatever you are, you're not a failure." I smile a little. "Tomorrow you'll be better at this. You'll see."

"Tomorrow?"

I touch her back softly. It doesn't matter that her shirt separates our bare skin—I feel the heat of her anyway.

"What was your first hallucination?"

"It wasn't a 'what' so much as a 'who'. It's not important." I shrug quickly.

"And are you over that fear now?"

"Not yet." I take my hand off her and put both hands in my pockets, leaning against the wall outside the dormitory. "I may never be."

"So they don't go away?"

"Sometimes they do. And sometimes new fears replace them." I feel fidgety, nervous. This isn't a topic I enjoy. I hook my thumbs through my belt loops. "But becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it,  _that's_ the point. Anyway, your fears are rarely what they appear to be in the simulation."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, are you really afraid of crows?" I kind of smile at her and I watch her whole face relax. "When you see one, do you run away screaming?"

"No. I guess not." A torn expression takes over her face, and then she steps forward, leaning against the wall in front of me. I stop breathing for a moment at her unexpected closeness. She leans even closer to me, and I feel the space between us charge with energy. It tingles. For a minute, I debate closing it, pulling her against my chest and telling her I won't let her fail.

"So what am I really afraid of?" She asks, stopping me.

"I don't know. Only you can know."

"I didn't know becoming Dauntless would be this difficult." She seems to regret her words, and her eyes stay sharp on my face.

"It wasn't always like this, I'm told. Being Dauntless, I mean," I shrug.

"What changed?"

"The leadership. The person who controls training sets the standard of Dauntless behavior. Six years ago, Max and the other leaders changed the training methods to make them more competitive and more brutal, said it was supposed to test people's strength. And that changed the priorities of Dauntless a whole. Bet you can't guess who the leaders' new protégé is."

She doesn't reply, and she doesn't need to. She gazes at me with a look of wonder in her eyes. It makes me nervous.

"So if you were ranked first in your initiate class, what was Eric's rank?"

"Second."

"So he was their second choice for leadership and you were their first."

Spot on. "What makes you say that?"

"The way Eric was acting at dinner the first night. Jealous, even though he has what he wants."

We gaze at each other for a long time before she wipes her eyes and says "Do I look like I've been crying?"

I decide to close up our distance. I lean in and bring our faces close together, narrowing my eyes and inspecting her. She's not breathing. I wonder if that is a good reaction—like when she comes near me—or a bad one, one of fear. I smile, deciding it must be good, because she's not pulling away.

"No, Tris. You look tough as nails."


	12. The Drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *ducks head* I wrote this part in like the beginning of my freshman year of high school so don't judge me if it comes off very juvenile. Also don't let this prevent you from reading other things I've written because I've gotten better I swear

"Four! My man!" Zeke's hand slams down on my shoulder and I just look at him. His eyes are unfocused, and his breath smells.

"Really, Zeke, starting already?"

"You didn't tell me to wait for you," He tries to walk, and nearly tips over. I grab his arm and hold him up.

"Four!" My head snaps up and I look at Lauren, waving me over from the side of the chasm. Zeke yanks his arm out of mine and hurries over to the group of people from our initiate year. I move toward them slowly, cautiously, and Lauren shoves a bottle at me.

"Drink up," she slurs. "You look uptight."

I look at the bottle hanging from my fingers. "I—"

Lauren leans in, letter her drunken lips brush my ear. "It'll help you forget the Stiff."

I run my tongue over my teeth. If Lauren's this drunk  _already_ she'll most likely be blurting out everything I've ever told her about Tris is less than an hour. I definitely don't want to be coherent for that teasing. I put the bottle to my lips and chug.

A bottle of Whisky later, and I'm seeing double.

"Hey, hey, look." Lauren shoves her elbow into my side, but stumbles and it ends up in my stomach. "There's your Stiff."

I spin around, and sure enough, Tris and Will are walking together, with Al giving Christina a piggy back ride.

" _His_ Stiff?" Zeke repeats.

"Yeah, well—"

Lauren launches into story mode, and I call out "Tris!"

Her eyes flick over to Will as I walk over to them.

Her eyes look bigger, bluer, and they hold mine more forcefully. She's wearing more revealing clothes, too, I realize with some sort of pleasant emotion. Her collarbones jut out, and I can actually see them, they aren't hidden. "You look different," I tell her.

"So do you," She eyes me carefully. "What are you doing?"

"Flirting with death," I laugh, feeling the drunken haze turn all my thoughts to liquid. I try to form a coherent sentence. "Drinking near the chasm. Probably not a good idea."

"No, it isn't."

I'm still checking her out, so I notice little blobs of ink on her collarbone. I lean toward her. "Didn't know you had a tattoo," I pull the bottle up to my mouth and take a sip. "Right. The  _crows."_ I debate offering her my bottle. I try picturing Tris drunk, slurring her words and stumbling. I can't. I look over at my friends. Lauren is undoubtedly telling them—what was I worried about her telling them?

"I'd ask you to hang out with us, but you're not supposed to see me this way."

"What way? Drunk?"

"Yeah, well, no." Why wasn't she supposed to see me like this? Oh, right. I can't control my thoughts or actions. "Real, I guess."

"I'll pretend I didn't."

I smile. She's nice. And pretty. "Nice of you," I don't remember deciding to, but I am suddenly leaning forward, my lips dragging over her ear. "You look good, Tris."

She laughs nervously. Her pretty eyes are wide. "Do me a favor and stay away from the chasm, okay?"

"Of course," I wink at her.

She smiles. Then Al comes and heaves her up, onto his back. I feel a strong emotion build up in my belly—jealousy. But she waves goodbye at me, and I like that.

I turn and walk over to my friends.

"Well, well, well," Zeke slurs. "Did ya make your move?"

"I'm goin' home," I announce, turning to leave.

"Four! Wait!" Lauren grabs my arm. "Is—are you mad? 'Cause I told them?"

I shrug. "Nah." I turn and leave, walking back to my apartment, just trying not to fall.

Some people have the luxury of forgetting what happened when they're drunk. I don't. I remember everything.

I wake up with a migraine, my fingers massaging my temples.

I get up and get myself some water. I almost spit it out when I remember my exchange with Tris. That was the most flirting I'd done  _ever_ and she, maybe, flirted back. I pull my fingers through my hair. Where does this leave us? Does she want to pretend it never happened? Or does she want me to flirt with her again? I take a deep breath.

Never again. I will never ever again get  _that_ wasted, I will  _never_ risk doing  _anything_ that stupid again.


	13. The Suspicion

"It's just a simulation, Tris," I remind her softly.

She nods slowly and closes her eyes. The simulation takes her.

She's trapped in a glass room. Her heart rate accelerates. Suddenly, my face is on the screen. I freeze. I'm smirking at her, pointing at her feet which are now wet. She looks at simulation me, and I just shrug. I begin wondering what this means—that I'm there, that she's looking at me for help, and I'm not helping her. Does that mean she trusts me, that when she's in danger, I'm the person she turns to?

"Hey! Let me out of here!" She starts pounding wildly at the glass. "Get me out of here!"

She sees Christina and Peter and I put away any thoughts I'd had before. I'm not special. "Help! Please! Please help!"

She attacks the glass frantically and then something remarkable happens. As Tris is drowning, the glass cracks, and the water floods out and she can breathe. I remove myself quickly from the simulation and go wait for her to wake up.

She gasps and sits up. I stare at her, feeling sick to my stomach. It was bad enough knowing that I have feelings for her, but knowing she's  _Divergent._ That changes everything. I was so worried about the other initiates hurting her—now I have the leaders to worry about too?

"What?"

"How did you do that?" I demand.

"Do what?"

"Crack the glass."

"I don't know."

She's clueless. I offer her my hand, and she takes it willingly, curling her fingers around my palm. My hand tingles as I help her to her feet.

I sigh. Tingling or no tingling, she's Divergent, and that's dangerous.

I take her elbow and drag her out of the room. She pulls her arm out of my grasp and stops. I stare at her for a long time.

"What?" She finally says.

"You're Divergent."

Her eyes bulge, and I realize I was wrong when she looked so baffled earlier. She's not clueless. She knows. She leans back, pushing her shoulders into the wall a little too stiffly to come off as casual. "What's Divergent?"

"Don't play stupid. I suspected it last time," I bluff. I didn't really think about it. Reflecting, now, of course, I should have noticed. Three minutes? That's unheard of. I continue, "but this time it's obvious. You manipulated the simulation; you're Divergent. I'll delete the footage, but unless you want to wind up  _dead_ at the bottom of the chasm, you'll figure out how to hide it during the simulations! Now, if you'll excuse me." I turn and go into the simulation room again. I delete the end of the footage and tweak it a little, making it look like her heart rate settled and she woke up, just like everyone else. I sent it to headquarters, while leaning forward onto my elbows, massaging my temples. Here we go.

"Tobias Eaton. Marcus Eaton's boy," Max smiles at me from behind his desk, "Your deep, dark secret."

I press my lips into a firm line. Unfortunately, Max, as a Dauntless leader, has the right—and ability—to know which faction you came from, and it wasn't difficult for him to put the pieces together. He knows who I am.

"Why did you call me here? Just to torment me about my past?"

Max had ordered me to come in for a so-called meeting, and I was  _not_ happy about it.

"Not at all, Tobias."

"Four. I go by Four."

"Sorry.  _Four._ I asked you to come down here this evening to ask you about your initiates." He gets to his feet and runs his fingers along his cherry wood desk, inspecting his fingers for dust. "Have you noticed anything ... bizarre or strange about any of them?"

I swallow. I know what he's asking. He doesn't care about their personalities—he wants to know if they're Divergent.

"No. I haven't seen any signs."

"We have quite a crew this year, though,  _Four."_ He begins walking around slowly, pausing to straighten a picture on his desk. "The Stiff," he says, and I freeze.

"What about her?"

"What's she like?"

"I don't know very much about any of them."

"She seems to be doing well with the fear simulations so far."

I shrug. "Can I speak personally?"

"Please, do."

"In Abnegation, you learn how to set aside your emotions at a young age. I think she's taking that self-taught ability and is applying it here."

"How so?"

"When she gets scared, she just knows how to hide it and calm down."

"You're saying she still acts Abnegation?" He moves around to the inside of his desk again, but doesn't sit.

"No. I just mean she's only doing well because of the abilities she already possesses. There's nothing special about her."

"So you don't think she's, ahem,  _different?"_

"No. Absolutely not," I shake my head. "The girl is entirely and boringly average."

I'm lying through my teeth.

He leans forward suddenly, planting his palms on the desk suddenly, causing a loud noise. He gets too close. I shift back in my chair.

"You know what to do if you see any signs, right,  _Tobias?"_

Trying to intimidate me. I grind my teeth. "Of course. I come straight to you."

"Good boy." He smiles, his nose wrinkling up. "You're free to go, now."

I get to my feet and I turn to the door. I'm touching the handle when he calls, "Oh, and Four?"

I turn to look at him.

"There's a meeting for all the faction leaders coming up. Would you like me to say 'hello' to your father for you?"

I push open the door and slam it behind me on my way out.


	14. The Attack

I watch Tris hold her head in her hands and try not to cry. The simulation has been the same twice in a row now—being held at gunpoint and told to shoot her family.

She lifts her head and meets my gaze. She looks almost guilty. "I know the simulation isn't real," She mumbles.

"You don't have to explain it to me," I tell her. "You love your family. You don't want to shoot them. Not the most unreasonable thing in the world."

"In the simulation is the only time I get to see them," She says softly. "I miss them. You ever just ... miss your family?"

I look down. I think of my family—of the mother that abandoned me, the father that attacked me and locked me in a closet. If someone told me to shoot them, I'd do so willingly. "No. I don't. But that's unusual."

She looks at me, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. I meet her gaze, and the air between us charges with electricity again. I want to hug her, to tell her it'll get easier—to kiss her, even.

We gaze at each other for an extremely long time. I hear my heartbeat. I should say something to her. I should but that doesn't mean I  _can._

She shoves open the door and hurries off, leaving me suddenly cold, and the room way too quiet. I sigh.

"Heard your Stiff came in first so far in stage two," Zeke's voice suddenly sounds behind me, and I turn to look at him. I exhale sharply.

"Stop calling her that."

He grins. "I'd honestly forgotten all about what Lauren said that night.  _Man,_ I was  _wasted._ But Lauren ran to me the next morning and begged me not to pester you about it, and I remembered."

I roll my eyes.

"Four! Zeke! Wait up!"

We turn around as Shauna rushes toward us. "Hey," She says. "I was just with Lauren." She rolls her eyes. "I feel bad. She's a nice girl, but  _man_ she has a mouth on her."

"She never shuts up," Zeke agrees.

I shrug. "She's not so bad once you get used to her."

Zeke grins. "Four, here, has been confiding in Lauren."

"Ooh," Shauna wiggles her eyebrows.

"It's not like that," I say quickly.

"Four has his eyes on a  _different_ girl—a  _younger_ girl, at that." Zeke winks.

"No way," Shauna stares at me. "You have a thing for an initiate?"

I hear a voice and I stiffen. "Did you guys hear that?"

"Yeah, Shauna was—"

"Not Shauna. Someone else," I turn and walk off, to the training room. They follow.

A bunch of Dauntless-born and Tris are standing in a room together. I quickly identify them as Uriah, Marlene, and Lynn.

Uriah shoots a plastic bullet at a target.

"I thought I heard something in here," I say. Tris's eyes are on me—I can feel the heat of them as I look around the room.

"Turns out it's my idiot brother," Zeke agrees. "You're not supposed to be in here after hours. Careful, or Four will tell Eric, and you'll be as good as scalped."

Uriah makes a face and puts the gun away. Marlene is eating a muffin. I step away from the door to let her out.

"You wouldn't tell Eric," Lynn says carefully, looking me up and down.

"No, I wouldn't," I assure her.

Tris is the last to file out, and I follow behind her, pressing my hand into her back, between her shoulder blades, gently. I've been doing a lot of pointless touching recently with Tris—taking her hand and helping her up after fear simulations, pulling her places instead of telling her to follow me.

Zeke and Uriah are messing around in a brotherly way, while Shauna and Marlene are now both eating the muffin. Lynn is up front, walking like a soldier. Tris begins to follow them, but something in me wants her to stay.

"Wait a minute," I say without thinking.

She turns back to me and I mentally kick myself. I didn't know what to say.  _Hang out with me?_

I force a little smile and try to sound like a sane person. "You belong here, you know that? You belong with us. It'll be over soon, so just hold on, okay? I scratch behind my ear—a nervous gesture—and look away from her, because I'd failed and sounded like an idiot.

She gazes intensely at me, and then suddenly reaches out and touches my hand. I look down as our fingers intertwine, and my heart lurches and takes off running. My skin tingles and tickles everywhere we touch. She looks up at me, and I look down at her, into her blue eyes. My stomach feels unsteady, like I can't tell if I'm hungry or nauseas. I feel like kissing her. I should kiss her. She's so close. I can definitely kiss her. I mean, she just took my hand—she's  _holding my hand._ She'll let me kiss her—

She pulls her hand away and runs after her friends. My hand suddenly feels freezing, and I shove it into my pocket. What was that? Was she mad that I didn't kiss her? Or did she regret touching me? I turned and began walking to the control room, completely baffled.

The nighttime air feels unnaturally cold as I walk back to my apartment from the control room. I shove my hands in my pockets. I've been insanely distracted all evening, thinking about Tris, about how small and fragile and perfect her hand felt in mine.

A blood curdling, ear shattering, stomach churning scream echoed through the air, and then I was running.

Something in me just  _knew_ it was Tris. Call it a sixth sense, if you will, but I was suddenly  _very_ glad my legs are long, because I was covering distance at a pretty good rate, and soon I'd made it to the chasm. I almost threw up at what I saw. My Tris, being held over the Chasm by her neck, looking weak and tired and injured.

_"What the hell?"_

The roar that escapes my mouth sounds foreign, but I don't let that phase me as I throw myself forward, my hands reaching for anything I can grab. Peter and Al take off. Al? The same Al that I'd been worried would steal Tris out from under me was now _attacking her?_

They were gone too fast, but Drew was slow. I grab him by his neck and slam my fist into his face. Blood is pouring from his mouth, his nose. I. Don't. Care. He flings an arm out in self-defense, getting my mouth. I just attack him more viciously.

My fist goes at him until his knees give out. When he slumps, I drop him and begin just kicking at him—his ribs, his stomach, everywhere. I'm seeing red, losing my mind, when I hear it.

"Four," Tris breathes. Her voice is filled with such trust that all my anger just melts. I look at the body by my feet. He's in no condition to go anywhere. I walk over to Tris, picking her up by her arms and pulling her over the railing. I cradle her against my chest, and I feel a sharp pain in my chest. All I've wanted to do for the past, God, weeks, I suppose, was to hold her, and now I'm holding her, crumpled and broken in my arms. She presses her face into my shoulder and I run.


	15. The Aftermath

I balance Tris carefully in my arm and resting against my leg as I shove open the door to my apartment, glad that the fact I never lock my door is finally paying off. I cradle her in my arms and kick the door closed behind us. I move forward, and lay her down on my bed. I stare at her. What do I do now? I should have, reasonably, taken her to the infirmary, but I definitely didn't want her waking up there, scared and confused. I also didn't want to deal with the nurse's questions and knowing gaze.

I decide to check for injuries. She's out cold, so I carefully rotate her ankles, bend her knees, and work my way up. As I did this, her shirt rode up and I saw discolored skin. I pull the fabric up and look in horror at her side. It was already turning black and blue, just like her cheekbone. I feel sick. I need to get out of there. I went back to the chasm and picked Drew up off the ground he moaned and spit out blood.

I brought him to the infirmary. "We, we only wanted to scare her," he panted when we were outside. I pulled back my fist and got one final, solid punch in before the nurse scurried over.

"What happened?"

"He tried to kill my-er-initiate."

She squints at me. "You're the boy that brought the girl here the other week, right?"

I nod.

"Was it that girl?"

I nod.

"Hmm," She makes a face. "You didn't bring the girl here."

I look away.

"Give him to me. Go get to your girl."

I shove Drew into the infirmary and sigh. "Can I have a few icepacks?"

The nurse smiles sweetly and moves across the room. A minute later she hands me two small blue packages. I thank her and run back to my apartment.

Tris is still asleep in my bed when I get home, and I quickly put the icepack in the fridge and walk over to my sink. There's a red cut on my lip from where Drew managed to get me, but other than that, I seemed fairly damage free. Then I looked at my hands. My knuckles were split, and there was dried blood crusted around them. I turned on the water and put my hands under it, letting the water take away the blood. I turn off the tap and examine and dry my hands. I turn around and get the ice pack out of the fridge. When I lift my head, Tris is looking at me.

"Your hands," She says, her voice dry and cracking.

I try not to roll my eyes. The girl was attacked, nearly  _killed,_ and her first thought is about  _my_ injuries. For a minute, my chest warms. Then I remind myself that it's just the leftover Abnegation in her—she doesn't actually care that it's me. If Christina had bloody knuckles, she'd notice that, too.

"My hands are none of your concern," I say, kneeling on the bed and leaning over to put the icepack behind her head.

While I'm there, Tris lifts her hand and reaches forward toward me. Her hand stops, an inch away from my face. Then it stretches out, and her soft fingers brush against the side of my mouth. My entire face feels overheated. My heart stammers and speeds up, and I had to force my breathing to stay even. She'd be worried about anyone else. But would she touch them? I can feel my pulse everywhere, in my fingers, my stomach, my toes, my neck— _everywhere._

"Tris," I breathe, "I'm all right."

Her hand falls, and my lip feels itchy from her touch. I decide not to scratch it, though, because I can't even imagine what she would think of that.

"Why were you there?"

"I was coming back from the control room. I heard a scream."

"What did you do to them?"

"I deposited Drew in the infirmary a half hour ago. Peter and Al ran. Drew said they were only trying to scare you. At least, that's what I think he was trying to say." I struggle against the smirk that wants to take over my face.

"He's in bad shape?"

"He'll live. In what shape, I can't say." I briefly worry that she'll be mad at me—tell me she can handle herself.

Then my forearm is on fire as her fingers wrap around it. "Good," She says, and her voice matches the flames in my body.

And then she's crying.

For a moment, I'm startled by the tears running down her cheeks, then I remember that the poor girl just almost  _died._ She's been handling this remarkably well.

I crouch by the bed and gently tug my arm out of her hand so I can touch her face. I let my palm curl to the shape of her cheek, my thumb gently stroking her cheekbone. My fingers tingle, but it's a pleasant feeling, so I keep my hand there.

"I could report this," I tell her softly. I could get them kicked out of Dauntless forever.

"No. I don't want them to think I'm scared."

I nod. That's my girl. Tough, even when unnecessary. I let my fingers stroke her face. I realize that once I get over the initial spark, it doesn't  _burn_  to touch her anymore, it's just a pleasant warmth that makes me feel, I don't know,  _good._ I can't even think of a time before Tris when I liked to be touched.

"I figured you would say that."

"You think it would be a bad idea if I sat up?"

"I'll help you." I drop my hand from her face so I can put my arm around her and carefully pull her into a sitting position, steadying her head with my other hand.

Her whole face twists. I hand her the icepack. "You can let yourself be in pain," I tell her softly. "It's just me here."

Her teeth come down on her lips, and tears roll down her cheeks, right where my hand had rested moments before. I don't say anything, I just pretend I don't even notice.

"I suggest you rely on your transfer friends to protect you from now on."

"I thought I was. But Al," She touches her head and rocks back and forth. I know I typically try not to feel bad for Tris, but this, her breaking down, is  _killing_ me.

"He wanted you to be the small, quiet girl from Abnegation," I say, trying to offer some sort of help. "He hurt you because you made him feel weak. No other reason."

She nods weakly.

"The others won't be as jealous if you show some vulnerability. Even if it isn't real."

"You think I have to  _pretend_ to be vulnerable?"

I think of her, crumpled and broken in my arms not even an hour ago, and then I see her sitting up on my bed, having a conversation with me. "Yes, I do."

I reach out and take the icepack from her and hold it against her head, getting to my feet. Our fingers brush as I do this, and tingles shoot up my arm.

I look down at her, and she's gazing intensely at my stomach, her cheeks pink, and I suddenly wish I could read her mind. I decide to distract her.

"You're going to want to march into breakfast tomorrow and show your attackers they had no effect on you, but you should let that bruise on your cheek show, and keep your head down."

She looks sick. "I don't think I can do that," She lifts her gaze to mine. She has really pretty eyes.

I mentally kick myself and try to focus. "You have to."

"I don't think you  _get_ it." She turns bright red. "They touched me."

I feel every muscle in my body lock up, my mind going into overdrive.

 _Touched her._ They  _touched_ her.  _Touched_ her as in  _raped_ her. I feel sick. I should have murdered Drew. Should have thrown him into the chasm and walked away. My hand clenches into a fist around the icepack. I'm practically shaking with anger. My teeth slam into each other, grinding, and I see red.

"Touched you," I manage to repeat.

"Not ... in the way you're thinking. But almost."

 _Almost._ Almost means  _nothing._ They put their hands on her. They put their hands on  _my_ Tris.  _My_ Tris, who would never even  _think_ about doing anything  _half_ this cruel to  _anyone._ They were going to  _rape_ her. They were going to rape her and throw her into the chasm, and make it look like one big accident. The thought makes me dizzy. What if I hadn't made it in time? What if I  _hadn't_ worked the control rooms? What if I'd been in bed, and Lauren showed up sobbing, because something happened to my initiates again? What if this time she told me Tris was dead? The thoughts are impossibly painful—worse than anything I've ever experienced. The idea of Tris dying is worse than sixteen years of closets and belts.

"What is it?" She asks, as if she can't even understand why my eyes are likely black with fury, like I have no reason to be dying on the inside.

"I don't want to say this, but I feel like I have to." I take a deep breath. "It is more important for you to be safe than right, at the time being. Understand?"

She makes a small face and nods.

"But please, when you see an opportunity," I touch her face—I can't stop touching her today, apparently—and tip her chin up so she meets my gaze. Warmth takes me over. "Ruin them."

She laughs. Her breath runs over my face and I try not to shiver. "You're a little scary, Four."

"Do me a favor, and don't call me that." I said the words unthinkingly, and I realized then that I wanted Tris to know  _me,_ not as Four, the instructor, or Four, Dauntless legend.

I want her to know  _me,_ as Tobias Eaton, who left Abnegation as a scared boy, and fell in love with her as a man.

And now that I've admitted it to myself, there's no going back.

I'm in love with her.

"What should I call you then?"

"Nothing." I stop touching her and stand up straight. "Yet."


	16. The Result

"What are you doing?"

I glance over my shoulder at Tris. "I'm getting myself a blanket." I pull the spare out of the closet and spread it on the floor, tossing a pillow down with it.

"Oh, Four, I really shouldn't—"

"Don't be stupid. Going back to the dormitory would be a mistake. I'm perfectly fine on the floor."

"I'm causing you a lot of trouble."

I look at her. "You're not doing anything wrong. Do you need anything? Water, in case you get thirsty?"

"No, I'll be fine."

"Okay. Goodnight." I help her settle down in the pillows and then I cross the room, flicking off the lights. I settle into my blanket pile on the floor.

"Four?"

"I thought I told you not to call me that."

"Sorry. Um, I just wanted to say thank you. For everything."

I smile to myself. "Go to sleep, Tris."

I wrap my arm around my head and try not to fidget. The floor isn't exactly comfortable, but I've had worse.

I hear Tris scream, and everything in my body goes alert. I run, as fast as I can to the chasm.

Marcus stands, dangling Tris by her wrists over the edge. She's soaked from the chasm spray, and she's crying out in agony. When she sees me, she starts shouting out "Four! Four, please, please, help me, please!"

Marcus snickers. "Four? Oh, please. Forget about the girl, Tobias. She doesn't matter."

"Tobias?" Tris turns her eyes to me. "Please, Four, please—Tobias, whoever you are, just  _please."_

 _Whoever you are._ Great.

I move forward with a quick motion, wrapping my left hand around her wrist and throwing forward my right fist, getting Marcus in the face.

He releases her and walks away, laughing. I spin and grab onto her forearms. "Four, Four, Four," She whimpers, "I'm slipping."

"No, you're not," I roar, gripping her hands.

"Goodbye," She whispers, and her hands slide from mine.

I jerk forward in my blanket pile. I push my hands through my hair. I get up and check on Tris—she's safe, dry, and sound asleep. I check the clock. There's no use in going back to bed.

I go take a cold shower and try to think.

Should I tell Tris who I  _really_ am? She wouldn't really be bothered, I don't think. But she'd look at me differently. She would undoubtedly look at me differently. She'd see me as the poor boy that was abused by his father. I yank my hands through my hair.

When I get out of the shower, I dress quickly and hurry back to my room. Tris might be awake.

I grab a towel as I walk out, and I push open my door to see my bed empty. For a fleeting moment, my heart lurches.

Then I see Tris, her hair pulled back into a knot and I relax. I reach up and dry my hair, keeping my eyes on her. Her eyes are glued onto my stomach. I glance down quickly, to make sure I didn't forget to put pants on or something.

She lifts her gaze to mine with what looks like a lot of effort. "Hi," she says.

Unthinkingly, I reach out and touch her bruising cheekbone. Last night was different—I felt like I wasn't Four anymore. It's going to be hard to go back to being her instructor.

"Not bad. How's your head?"

She makes a face and reaches back to touch the bump. "Fine."

My hand casually falls to her injured side and carefully—so carefully—I let my palm rest against the bruise.

She stiffens all over, and I wonder, briefly, if she's going to be upset with me for knowing about it. After all, she never told me about the side injury. I'd found that on my own.

"And your side?" I keep my voice low.

"Only hurts when I breathe," She replies.

I smile a little. Oh, my Tris. "Not much you can do about that."

"Peter would probably throw a party if I stopped breathing."

"Well," I decide to throw a little humor back to her, to make her feel at least a little better. "I would only go if there was cake."

She laughs, and then sucks a in little breath in pain, and moves her hand over mine, pressing it more firmly to her side. I stop breathing. Her fingers are warm on mine, and I remember how they felt when she twined them together. Is it possible that happened just yesterday?

I pull my hand back slowly. I don't want to stop touching her, of course not, but it'd probably be strange if we stood there holding her side for any length of time.

I nod slowly and lead the way out.

We walk to the cafeteria together, and only once did I worry about someone spotting us and asking questions. Walking together is  _not_ a crime.

"I'll go in first," I tell her, even though I want to stay with her. I want to walk in with her, and sit beside her, and make sure she's safe. "See you soon, Tris."

I walk in and go straight to the table Lauren and Zeke are seated in.

I sit down and put my elbows on the table, my face in my hands.

"Hey. You okay?" Lauren asks quietly.

"They tried to kill Tris last night," I said quietly, massaging my temples with my fingertips.

"What? What happened?"

"She came in first. They stabbed the first one in the eye, and tried to rape and murder Tris..."

"Oh, jeez. Did you report them?"

"She didn't want me to."

"And you're  _listening_ to her?"

I don't respond.

"She doesn't look that bad," Lauren says casually. "Just a bruise."

"You should see her side. She probably has damage to her ribs. And she's got a nasty bump on her head."

"Yet, you aren't reporting her attackers. You  _love_ this girl, are you forgetting that?"

"Of course not," I snap.

And then the room gets a bit quieter.

"Oh, God, Four, did you do that?"

I look up and see Drew walking in. His face is puffy and black and blue and he's got a cut and a split lip—nothing compared to my lip. I smirk, struggling against the giant grin that I want to wear. I feel Tris's eyes land on me, and I wish I were beside her again.

"Hey. Four."

I look at Lauren.

"Did you, ahem, make your move last night?"

I glare at her. "She practically died."

She shrugs. "I still suggest asking her out."

I get up and walk to stand in the center of the tables. Everyone gets quiet. Tris's eyes burn into me.

"Transfers. We're doing something different today. Follow me."

_Breathe, breathe, your fear doesn't exist. You know these paths. You could do this with your eyes closed._

I lead the initiates along the path that surrounds the Put, going higher and higher until my breath gets caught in my throat a little bit. I force air into my unwilling lungs.

I turn around and walk backwards, eyeing up Drew, purple and blue and sluggish, and can't resist.

"Pick up the pace, Drew!"

I look over at Tris, wanting to see the same pride in her eyes that I'm sure is in mine. Instead, I see her gripping Will's arm. She seems fine, but his face is pale.

She's supporting  _him._ She  _should_ have her arms around me, walking against  _my_ side—no one would dare to touch her then—safe and happy forever.

I toss the thoughts away. I can't afford to think like that. I briefly kick myself mentally for not, to quote Lauren,  _making my move._

I lead them all the way up and around until we reach the fear landscape room. "This," I say, "is a different kind of simulation known as the fear landscape. It has been disabled for our purposes, so this isn't what it will be like the next time you see it. Through your simulations, we have stored data about your worst fears. The fear landscape accesses that data and presents you with a series of virtual obstacles. Some of the obstacles will be fears you previously faced in your simulations. Some are new fears. The difference is that you are aware, in the fear landscape, that it is a simulation, so you will have all your wits about you as you go through it."

I look around the room, my eyes hesitating on Tris, who looks nervous. This should be good news to her; everyone appears Divergent in the fear landscape.

"The number of fears you have in your landscape varies according to how many you have. I told you before that the third stage of initiation focuses on mental preparation. That is because it requires you to control both your emotions and your body—to combine the physical abilities you learned in stage one with the emotional mastery you learned in stage two. To keep a level head," I felt full of nerves, on fire, and I let myself meet Tris's gaze.

"Next week you will go through your fear landscape as quickly as possible in front of a panel of Dauntless leaders. That will be your final test, which determines your ranking for stage three. Just as stage two of initiation is weighted more heavily than stage one, stage three is weighted heaviest of all. Understood?" Every head bobs. Even Drew, who cringes and scrunches his face up, nods.

"You can get past each obstacle in one of two ways. Either you find a way to calm down enough that the simulation registers or a normal, steady heartbeat, or you find a way to face your fear, which can force the simulation to move on. One way to face a fear of drowning is to swim deeper, for example." I shrug my shoulders. "So I suggest that you take the next week to consider your fears and develop strategies to face them."

"That doesn't sound fair," Peter argues suddenly. "What if one person only has seven fears and someone else has twenty? That's not their fault."

I stare at him, running my tongue over my teeth. It takes me a second to resist the urge to grab him by his throat and dangle him over the chasm to see how he likes it. Then I laugh. "Do you really want to talk to me about what's fair?"

Does he think it's  _fair_ to almost kill an innocent girl? Does he think it's  _fair_ that he almost took from me the only person I care about? Does he think it's  _fair_ that as soon as I started to soften my shell, to let Tris in, he tried to  _kill_ her?  _Fair_ is clearly not a value of his.

As I mentally rant, I begin moving towards him. I fold my arms to hide the fists my hands had automatically clenched into.

"I understand why you're worried, Peter. The events of last night certainly proved that you are a miserable coward." I hear the undeniable anger, the outright rage in my voice and I know everyone else does too. "So now we all know," I try to lower my voice a little bit, "that you are afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation." I can feel Tris's eyes on my face, so I let my lips curl into a smile.


	17. The Guilt

I fall to the ground and cover my head with my arms. I am screaming. I am terrified. I am weak again.

 _"Get up,"_ Marcus snarls the words, grabbing me around the throat and beginning to yank on me. "Get  _up!"_

"Four! Get up! God, Four, wake up!"

My eyes fly open and I jerk upright. This time when Lauren wakes me up, I don't slam my head into hers.

"What is your  _problem?"_ I snap. "Must you wake me up every night?"

She doesn't respond, and I swear her breath hitches. Then I reach out and turn the light on. Her hand is pressed against her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks, over her fingers, dripping off her chin.

I curse. "Lauren. I'm sorry, I—"

"Four," She chokes, "Al did suicide."

The ceremony begins with Eric going to talk into a microphone. I ignore him. He's speaking all lies anyway—he never cared about Al.

I lean against a wall and pull my hand through my hair. Al. I was once so jealous of him, for being Tris's peer, someone who she could be with and it would be socially accepted. Then he dangled her over the chasm, and sat by as the poor girl was nearly raped, and was apparently so guilt-ridden he chose to end his life. It's always a terrible thing when anyone ends their own life long before it's over.

My eyes, now trained to see Tris, catch her as she moves away from the celebration.  _Tris._ She had to know he liked her. I begin to follow her.

She stands with her back to me, shaking her head.

"Tris."

She flinches and whirls around. "What are you doing here?" Her eyes narrow. "Shouldn't you be paying your respects?"

 _Yes. But you're more important._ "Shouldn't you?" I step toward her, automatically.

"Can't pay respect when you don't have any," her face twitches. "I didn't mean that."

"Ah." I can't blame her for hating him. Earlier, I sort of hated him too.

"This is ridiculous," her cheeks turn pink. "He throws himself of a ledge and Eric's calling it brave? Eric, who tried to have you throw knives at Al's head?" I briefly worry that she was still mad at me for nicking her ear. "He wasn't brave! He was depressed and a coward and he almost killed me! Is that the kind of thing we respect here?"

"What do you want them to do? Condemn him? Al's already dead. He can't hear it and it's too late."

"It's not  _about_ Al," her eyes are entirely flooded with emotion as she corrects me. "It's about everyone watching! Everyone who now sees hurling themselves into the chasm as a viable option," She looks away from me briefly and when her eyes return they're calmer, sadder. "I mean, why not do it if everyone calls you a hero afterward? Why not do it if everyone will remember your name? It's... I can't." She shakes her head.

I look at her bright red face carefully. It wouldn't be the most unreasonable thing in the world for her to snap.

"This would  _never_ have happened in Abnegation!" She shouts the words suddenly, and my eyes immediately find one of the three cameras I know are in the area. I mentally curse myself for not bringing her away from their watching eyes earlier.

""None of it! Never," I look back at her when she continues her rand. "This place warped him and ruined him, and I don't care if saying that makes me a Stiff, I don't care, I don't  _care!"_

I let my eyes go to the camera again. I'm screwed. "Careful, Tris."

If it were  _anyone_ else,  _anyone,_ who just put me in this situation alongside them, I'd walk away, leave them to get in trouble for being rebellious on their own. But this is  _my_ Tris, and I can't do that.

"Is that all you can say?" She glares at me, "That I should be  _careful?_ That's  _it?"_

"You're as bad as the Candor, you know that?" Her curiosity is going to get us both killed. I grab her arm and tug her away, just out of reach of all cameras.

I did this reflexively, and I'd almost dropped her arm when I felt electric tingling shoot up my arm. Goosebumps made their way down my spine.  _Does she feel that, too?_

"I'm not going to say this again, so listen carefully." I put my hands on her shoulders and lean down toward her. I could feel her breath against my face. My heart stutters. I ignore it. "They are watching you.  _You,_ in particular."

"Let go of me." Her voice is small, weak, and worst of all, terrified. My hands fly off her at once and I lean back. I scared her. She's  _afraid_ of me.

"Are they watching you, too?" Her voice is still too quiet, that unsettles me, but I can't hear the terror in it anymore.

It's unfortunate that I can't answer her question. She'd ask too many more, and I'm unwilling to give  _that_ much of myself up yet. Plus, admitting my Divergence, with security cameras a few feet away would be idiotic.

"I keep trying to help you, but you refuse to be helped."

My words, apparently, are a mistake, because a fire seems to glow behind her blue eyes. "Oh right. Your  _help,"_ her voice drips acid. "Stabbing my ear with a knife and taunting me and yelling at me more than you yell at anyone else, it sure is helpful."

For a moment, I feel like someone just stabbed me in the chest with a dagger. She thinks I  _hate_ her. She doesn't realize that everything I say, everything I do, I do it all for her benefit. She doesn't realize I'm entirely in love with her.

"Taunting you? You mean when I threw the knives? I wasn't taunting you. I was reminding you that if you failed, someone else would have to take your place."

She reaches up to wrap her hand along the back of her neck. My eyes are immediately drawn to the movement. The skin there looks so soft. I want to run my fingers along it, to feel the fire pulse through my veins in ways only she makes possible.

"Why?"

For a moment, I fear that she heard my thoughts. Then I remember.

"Because you're from Abnegation," I say as though it were obvious, "and it's when you're acting selflessly when you are at your bravest."

I watch the understanding come to her face. Pain twitches across her features, and I know she is thinking of Al. I hurry to distract her.

"If I were you, I would do a better job of pretending that selfless impulse is going away, because if the wrong people discover it . . . well, it won't be good for you."  _They'll kill you,_ I want to say,  _and then I'll have to kill them. It would turn into a bloodbath._

"Why? Why do they care about my intentions?"

Oh, Tris. "Intentions are the only thing they care about. They try to make you think they care about what you do, but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. They want you to  _think_ a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them." I feel like we're too far away. Would it scare her if I move closer? I press my hand to the wall next to her head and lean forward.

She's so short that she can't even see my face anymore, not really. Her eyes follow my collarbone, along my shoulder, my arm, painting them with the hint of a fire, not yet fully burning, incomplete without her touch.

Her cheeks turn pink. I can almost feel their warmth. "I don't understand why they care what I think, as long as I'm acting how they want me to."

"You're acting how they want you to, now, but what happens when your Abnegation-wired brain tells you to do something else, something they don't want?"

Her lips press together, and I watch her face as she thinks for a minute.

"I might not need you to help me. Ever think about that? I'm not weak, you know. I can do this on my own."

 _Undoubtedly_ , I almost reply. But she needs more of an explanation that the one-word answer I gave her before climbing a Ferris wheel with her.

I shake my head. "You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you're wrong."

I lean toward her, putting our faces way too close together. I have a hard enough time controlling my actions when she's even in the same  _room_ as me, but when we're this close...

I wrap my fingers around her chin, and for a moment debate kissing her.

 _No,_ I snap the word to myself. She's in an emotional state right now, and that'd be wrong.

The burning I always feel when touching her is somehow amplified with our nearness. My entire body is on fire.

"My  _first_ instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press." I squeeze her chin gently in my fingers. I can feel all her bones. She feels so breakable under my fingers, but I know I'm wrong. She's entirely tense under my grip, and we're so close that I can tell she stopped breathing.

I meet her gaze. That made the fire worse. I'm practically trembling.

"But I resist it."

"Why," her voice cracks and she swallows noisily. I can't hear fear, not like I could earlier, but her voice shakes with  _some_ emotion. Is it the same intensity I feel now? She's feeling this too? "Why is that your first instinct?"

"Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. I've seen it. It's fascinating." I want to kick myself.  _Fascinating._ Great. She's probably convinced I think she's a science experiment.

I let go of her chin, but I was curious about this fire. I allow my fingers to trace the bones in her jaw, the skin of her neck, even  _softer_ that I'd expected. I feel like her skin is gasoline and mine is a lit match. She's probably so confused. I am not acting rationally.

"Sometimes I just want to see it again," I say softly. "Want to see you awake."

I expected her to pull away from me, to tell me I was acting strange, something, anything.

But instead, she reached out and rested her hands lightly on my waist.

An electric jolt shoots from her hands to mine, still lightly touching her neck. I am on fire, I am losing my mind. The air is stuck in my lungs. I can't breathe.

She pulls herself toward me, her fingers running along my lower back to wrap her arms around me. Her head settles into play about my racing heart. I'm sure she can feel it. I am frozen, goosebumps all over, practically trembling. Then, some instinct has me putting my hand against her back, pressing her even closer. The other hand begins to automatically stroke her soft, blonde hair. We fit together perfectly. It was like I was an incomplete puzzle all my life, and I was finally,  _finally_ whole with her in my arms. I am alive—on fire, tingling, trembling, but  _alive._

"Should I be crying?" She says the words into my shirt, and I can feel the warmth of her breath against my chest. I close my eyes and try not to shake. I can't even imagine how embarrassing that would be. "Is there something wrong with me?"

I know that if I speak now, my voice will be uneven and crack, and so I take a moment before answering, sucking air into my unwilling lungs.

"You think I know anything about tears?" I keep my voice quiet.

She presses her face against my shoulder, and I open my eyes and look down at her.

"If I had forgiven him do you think he would be alive now?"

She blames herself. My poor, sweet Tris. I want to reassure her, but I won't lie to her. "I don't know," I tell her honestly. And I can't help myself, I press my hand against her soft, warm cheek.

Her eyes are closed but she turns her face into my palm and leans into it, into my hold. My heart lurches. I press back the urge to kiss her.

"I feel like it's my fault."

"It's not your fault." I wasn't lying. I lean down, not to kiss her, but to touch her—again. I rest my forehead against hers. I can feel her breathing against my mouth. I can't think.

"But I should have. I should have forgiven him."

"Maybe. Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time." Did I mention that I can't think? I just thoughtlessly quoted an Abnegation speaker. Tris pulls away from me, and I feel my entire body go cold. She recognized it. Of course she recognized it.

"What faction did you come from, Four?"

I am kicking myself as hard as I can. She was  _in my arms,_ for God's sake, and then I was so stupid and now I have to keep secrets from her.

I look at my feet. "It doesn't matter. This is where I am now."  _I'm with you._ "Something you would do well to remember for yourself."

I meet her gaze. I am dying to kiss her— _dying_ to. But I know that I shouldn't. Rationally, I shouldn't even be thinking about kissing her. She's my initiate, practically my student. It's so inappropriate.

But I decided long ago that I didn't care, didn't I? That I like her—no, love her—anyway?

I lean forward and kiss her forehead. The fire burns hotter. I don't pull away as soon as I know I should. I don't want to move away. I want to kiss her nose, her blushing cheeks, and her soft-looking lips. But I know I can't. That's pushing it. Even when she pulled back, she'd kept her hands on me, and they rested on my waist, exactly where they had been originally.


	18. The Fear Landscape

This entire plan will be moot if Tris doesn't do what I expect her to. And she's made it abundantly clear that I can never be a hundred percent sure what she'll do.

I'm ninety percent sure that—if my timing is absolutely perfect—Tris will see me walking to the fear landscape and she'll follow me. That other ten percent is the risk that Tris and her friends leave where I just saw them, or that she won't follow me

I don't glance over my shoulder, but I know that if her eye catches my movement like I am fairly sure it will, she'll see me now. I can only hope she can tell it's me.

Then I feel the sudden heat on my shoulders, and I know she saw me.

I'm ninety-five percent sure this will work. It  _has_ to work.

My stomach is full of knots. I have been slowly placing little bits of myself in Tris's hands, very gradually letting her in. It's terrifying. Here I am,  _Four,_ the Dauntless legend—only four fears in my landscape!—and now that I like a girl, I'm petrified.

I look down at the box containing two syringes. Never in my life have I  _ever_ willingly let someone see this much of me—no one. If Tris comes up here, she's going to know  _everything._ She's going to know exactly what I fear. The last time I was that vulnerable, I was back in Abnegation with Marcus. But that's an entirely different kind of vulnerability.

And then I hear it: the soft but sure sound of someone following me. My heart thunders.

I stop outside the room and wait until I hear her stop behind me. I take a deep breath. I can't bring myself to turn around.

"Since you're here, you may as well go in with me."

"Into your fear landscape?" Her voice sounds a little skeptical.

"Yes."

I hear her approach me and I try to breathe. "I can do that?"

"The serum connects you to the program, but the program determines whose landscape you go through. And right now it's set to put us through mine." Am I talking too loud? I can barely hear over my racing heart.

"You would let me see that?"

Ah. That's the question. Am I really willing to give all of myself to her so entirely? Her eyes are sharp on my face, and I know the answer is yes. The answer will always be yes with Tris.

"Why else do you think I'm going in?" I lower my voice so it doesn't tremble. "There are some things I want to show you."

I hold up a syringe and turn to her, showing the end of her questions. She immediately tips her head and moves her hair. Something in me flutters at how entirely trusting she is. I place the tip of the needle into the skin of her neck, the soft skin that I'd touched. I push the plunger. This is it. No going back. Even if I run away screaming, she can now see my fear landscape.

I offer her the other syringe.

"I've never done this before," She warns, taking it from me as though it will bite her.

I tap the side of my neck with my finger. "Right here."

I almost smile when she stretches up onto her tiptoes. Her hands tremble slightly as she pushes the needle into my neck. She looks almost afraid. I keep my eyes trained on her as she pushes the plunger. I feel the serum enter my system. This is it. We're doing this.

I take the empty syringe from her and put it with the other in the box. Her eyes cling to the movement. Ah, she caught me. She definitely knew that I'd been desperately hoping she'd follow me. Well, if I'm giving myself to her entirely tonight, I might as well start with that.

I sigh and turn, offering her my hand. My heart pounds as she slides her fingers between mine. My skin sets on fire.  _Focus,_ I tell myself. If I can't even out my heart rate before I even go in the room, we'll be here for hours.

I grab the door with my free hand and go inside. I realize a second late that I should have been a gentleman and let her go in first. I hope she doesn't notice.

It's like she can sense my nerves. Her fingers squeeze mine softly. The gesture is reassuring, but my heart speeds up anyway.

"See if you can figure out why they call me Four," I tell her, although I am positive she'll figure it out easily. She's perceptive.

The door clicks closed. The air is cold and Tris inches closer to me, pressing her arm against mine. I can't breathe. She could tip her head to the side and have it be resting against my shoulder.

She can, but she doesn't. She probably doesn't even realize she can, that I want nothing in the world more than to hold her close to me, against my chest.

"What's your real name?"

"See if you can figure that out, too."

And then, before we can say anything else, the ground under our feet changes to grass, we're suddenly miles and miles high in the air. My stomach appears to have stayed somewhere on the ground. I feel like I'm choking. The air will not come up through my lungs. A scream catches in my throat. I clench my teeth. If the wind blows at the wrong direction, it could shove me off this building and I will  _die._

Tris's skin against mine reminds me that I'm not alone in this. For the first time in my life, I have someone to lean on.

So I do just that. I pry my hand out of hers and wrap my arm around her shoulders. Not to comfort her or to hold her closer—I'm not in my right mind enough for that. I do it to keep myself from being separated from her, from flying off the building, from dying.

"We have to jump off, right?" She calls over the howling wind. I can hardly hear her. My heartbeat echoes in my ears. Yes, we have to jump. It's physically impossible for me to calm my racing heart, not with the height, not with my arm around her, no. I have to face my fear.

 _We_ have to face my fear. I nod at her.

"On three, okay?" She looks up at me. I can't look back. My eyes are locked onto the edge of the building, the one we'll be hurling ourselves off in a moment. It feels so wrong, it feels suicidal, it feels  _murderous._ Letting Tris jump off a skyscraper, with no bungee cord... I feel like I'm killing her—like I'm killing the best part of me.

"One . . . two . . .  _three_!" She seems to realize my feet are glued to the ground, because she grabs a fistful of the back of my shirt and drags me with her when she begins to run. I stumble slightly at first, and then we fall into step. I almost hurl myself backward, to keep us both from jumping, but I know we need to do this. So I let us fall. I let us die.

But we're not dead. We're on all fours on the ground in the landscape room. I gasp in air, trying to relieve my burning lungs, and press my hand to my chest, feeling my heart race under my fingers. I've never gotten through that one so fast. It typically takes forever of nudging slowly toward the edge before I finally get the guts to launch myself off of it, screaming the whole time.

I had suspected that Tris would be a liability—that I'd do worse with her presence. But I was wrong. She makes me brave. Every second I've spent with her, I've been twice the person I was before we met.

I see her hand enter my view, and I take it, hoping my hands aren't entirely sweaty and disgusting. She helps me up.

"So what's next?"

I look at her blankly for a second. Her hair is windblown, blonde strands highlighting her face. Her blue eyes are wide, lit with leftover excitement—adrenaline. She  _enjoyed_ that.

I almost groan aloud at the thought of my next fear. This is probably the second worse. "It's—"

A wall suddenly slams against Tris's back, and she flies against me, her head hitting my chest. A wall is against my back, so we can't move apart. For one nanosecond, I forget why she's being slammed against me, and my heart races at the feel of her so close. Then a final wall slams down over our head, and there suddenly isn't enough air. We're suffocating. I barely fit in this damn box alone, but with Tris, despite her petite build, I  _don't_ fit. I have to hug my arms against my chest. I hunch over, my shoulders bracing for the ache that will surely be there by the time we make it through this whole landscape.

"Confinement," Tris says.

An inhuman noise comes out of my throat, and I think back to my years in Abnegation. I once got up early one morning to get water, and accidentally woke Marcus up. He proceeded to lock me in the closet, and then go to work. I was there for hours, sobbing until my eyes ran out of tears and it felt like a branding iron was shoved in my throat. No food, nothing to drink, just me, locked into a closet that I was beginning to outgrow for about eight hours. I see Marcus's face as he opens the door, grabs me and hurls me to a wall. I see his face as he removes his belt, his arm pulling back—

"Hey. It's okay. Here," Tris's fingers wrap around my arm, and the sudden heat brings me back to the moment. She pulls my arms around her. I grab at the back of her shirt, finding some minuscule piece of comfort at the way she feels in my arms. I lean down, putting my face next to hers. Our nearness pulls me away from Marcus.

"This is the first time I'm happy I'm so small," she says, laughing.

I wish I could laugh with her. I can't. "Mmhmm," I manage, using up the remainder of my air supply. I force my lips apart and drag air in, almost flinching at my reluctant body.

Tris begins strategizing. "We can't break out of here. It's easier to face the fear head on, right?" She only allows a brief pause, not waiting for a response, which is good, because I'm too busy not dying to speak. "So what we need to do is make the space smaller. Make it worse so it gets better, right?

I know she wants a real answer this time, so I choke out a one-word answer. "Yes." I am surprised when my voice doesn't crack.

"Okay. We'll have to crouch then. Ready?"

Her hands rest against my waist, right where they did when I kissed her forehead, and squeeze, tugging as she pulls me down with her.

Oh, God, how can my heart  _possibly_ beat faster than it already was? Her hold on me has my pulse doing things it shouldn't, doing things that will make it impossible to escape. I  _really_ should have thought this through before bringing her in here. My entire body is on fire now, now that I think about it.

The roof shrinks down on us, and all of a sudden, I just want to die.

She somehow spins, pressing her back to my chest and sitting on my foot. It's a good think she's light. Who knows how long we'll be here with my current heart rate.

I exhale the air I've been holding too long roughly and try to force more in, squeezing my eyes shut. Nausea rolls through me. I'd made myself sick in here before, but I can only pray I don't do that again. No. I won't  _let_ myself do that, no way, not with her here.

"Ah," oh yes, there's the cracking voice I've been waiting for. "This is worse. This is definitely . . ."

"Shh," Her voice is soothing, "Arms around me."

I immediately wrap both arms around her waist. And then, even though I'm behind her, I can see the shape of her face change. Her cheeks lift up. Is she  _smiling?_ Does she find humor in my torture? Or is she smiling because I'm holding her? If we weren't in my own personal Hell right now, I'd be smiling, too.

"The simulation measures your fear response," she tells me, even though I can remember teaching her this. "So if you can calm your heartbeat down, it will move onto the next one. Remember? So try to forget that we're here."

 _I wish we weren't here,_ I think. She wants me to calm my heartbeat. Does she realize she's responsible for part of its racing?

"Yeah?" I say. I hadn't realized how close our faces were until my lips touch her skin, her ear. My heart speeds up and I mentally curse myself. "That easy, huh?"

"You know, most boys would enjoy being trapped in close quarters with a girl."

 _If only she knew how much my heart was enjoying this_ , I think. It feels like I'm sitting way too close to an open flame. I am burning. I am burning, in a closet-like room. I begin to hyperventilate. I am going to die.

"Not claustrophobic people, Tris!" The words come out way too frantic. I don't care. I'm too panicked to even think about it.

"Okay, okay." She places her hand on mine, where it rests against her ribcage. She guides it up, holding over her heart.

Her heart is beating way too hard and fast for her to really tell me she's calm right now. Is she claustrophobic, too? She can't be! She was just  _teasing_ me, and  _smiling!_

Then it hits me. My heart races when I touch her. Does her heart react the same way? The idea that my feels are reciprocated makes me insanely happy.

Or it would, if I wasn't in a  _freaking box_ right now.

"Feel my heartbeat. Can you feel it?"

Her heart thumps forcefully against my hand to prove her point.

"Yes."

"Feel how steady it is?"

I almost laugh at the idea of her heart being  _steady._ "It's fast," I point out, forever amazing with words.

"Yes, well, that has nothing to do with the box."

I feel my already smoldering temperature rise. I was right. But I still can't breathe. I still feel sick. I feel small and too big at the same time. I feel weak. She flinches in my arms when she realizes what she said. She regrets her words. Does that make them untrue? Or does it mean she's just embarrassed? I can imagine embarrassment. I was too afraid to tell her how I feel, so I'm showing her.

"Every time you feel me breathe, you breathe. Focus on that."

"Okay."

Her chest rises under my hand, and I make mine do the same. It hurts. Everything hurts. I'm burning alive.

My heart doesn't slow. I'm breathing better, but my heart is still beating at the speed of light. Did I mention we're never getting out of here?

"Why don't you tell me where this fear comes from? Maybe talking about it will help us... somehow."

I am giving all of myself to her.

"Um... okay." We inhale together. I try to use this breath to give myself courage. "This one is from my fantastic childhood. Childhood punishments. The tiny closet upstairs." I don't allow myself to flashback again. No. I am beginning to—slowly, oh so slowly—recover, and flashing back would put me right back at the starting point. My heart is still too fast, but this time it's from her touching me, mostly. I think.

Her heart rate changes, momentarily skipping a beat, and then moving too quickly for a second to make up for it. "My mother kept our winter coats in our closet." She clearly tries to keep her voice casual, but I can hear the pain in it. She pities me. Wonderful.

But the kicker is that Marcus did, too. Me and too many big coats shoved into the tiny closet. "I don't," I gasp, realizing I'd forgotten to breathe with her a few times and that my chest had begun closing up, "I don't really want to talk about it anymore."

"Okay," She agrees. "Then ... I can talk. Ask me something."

I know the perfect question. My lips twitch; I feel it, the hinting of a smile. My chest still feels constricted, my heart's still racing, but I'm not as afraid.

"Okay," I manage a breathy laugh. "Why is your heart racing, Tris?"

She cringes. Ha! I've caught her. "Well, I..." I hear the panic in her voice momentarily. Then, in a way that sounds so false I almost laugh, "I barely know you." That's a lie. She knows me more than anyone else. She realizes this. "I barely know you, and I'm crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?"

She makes it sound like she's afraid of me. I decide to twist that, to catch her. My brain appears to be functioning again. "If we were in your fear landscape, would I be in it?"

"I'm not afraid of you." That response comes out of her immediately, reflexively, and it makes me feel good.

"Of course you're not." You like me. I've trapped you. "But that's not what I meant."

I laugh and this time, despite my pounding heart, it doesn't shake or crack. Instead, the walls do, falling open. I exhale in relief. I can breathe.

And then I can't.

Because she's still sitting on the floor, and my arms are wrapped around her and we're not in a box anymore. I'm holding the girl I'm in love with against my chest, just like I'd wished for when we first walked in here.

I sigh and remove my arms from her unwillingly. We're not in a good place to cuddle. She scrambles up awkwardly and beings brushing at her clothes, as if she's dirty.

I get up and stand in front of her. I'm cold now, freezing, missing the heat her touch causes. I grin at her, remembering how awful at lying she is, how I know for sure she likes me. Well, almost. She hasn't confirmed it yet.

"Maybe you were cut out for Candor," I tell her, "because you're a terrible liar."

"I think my aptitude test ruled that one out pretty well."

I shake my head. "The aptitude test tells you nothing."

Her eyes widen then narrow. "What are you trying to tell me? Your test isn't the reason you ended up Dauntless?"

I hadn't been  _trying_ to tell her anything. It was an accident. I rub the back of my neck.

"Not exactly, no. I..." The all too familiar sound of a bullet clicking in place sounds behind me. I glance over my shoulder.

"You have to kill her," Tris says after a moment, and I turn to see her looking at the table beside us with a gun and a bullet.

"Every single time."

"She isn't real," She assures me.

"She looks real," I argue like a child. I bite down on my lower lip and feel Tris's eyes move to my mouth and stay there. I almost shudder at the heat a simple look causes. "It feels real."

"If she was real, she would have killed you already," She reminds me gently.

"It's okay," I reply, nodding. "I'll just ... do it. This one's not ... so bad. Not as much panic involved."

I unwillingly pick up the gun and put the bullet in place. I am not a murderer. I am not a sadistic cruel person like my father. That is not who I am. No.

 _Killing someone your mind invented doesn't make you a killer,_ I remind myself patiently, aiming at her and take a deep breath in, curling my hands tight around the weapon. I close one eye, getting a better aim, inhale deeply, and exhale as I squeeze the trigger.

Her head whips back and she falls to the ground. She's bloody. She's weak. She's dead. I killed her. I'm a murderer. The gun falls out of my hands. I am exactly who I never wanted to be.

Fire wraps around my bicep and pulls gently. "Come on," she says. "Let's go. Keep moving."

I let her pull me away from the woman. No one would ever suspect this. No one would suspect that my Tris would be guiding me, taking care of  _me._

And then I feel my stomach vanish and my heart flew into my throat. "Here we go," I mumble. The dark shadow begins toward us. I wonder, briefly, what Tris is thinking, but that thought leaves me when he comes into view.

I don't let my eyes take in his details. There is absolutely no need to make tonight's nightmares more accurate than every other night's.

"Marcus," Tris breathes.

"Here's the part," my voice shakes, trembles, and I hate it, but I'm too scared to fix it, "where you find out my name."

"Is he...?" Her eyes flash to me, I feel it, and then go away, assumedly to Marcus. "Tobias," Her voice is firm, not questioning. She knows.

My name on her lips startles me. I can't breathe, and it's not even from fear. I can't even describe the emotion that runs through me. I didn't realize how much I missed hearing my name for the past two years. I exhale, and I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. She knows who I am.

I let myself look at Marcus, just as he reveals a belt. I almost throw up. I didn't think before I brought Tris here. God, why don't I ever  _think?_ I don't want her to see this, to see me cry and cover my face with my hands and to be a coward, to be weak, someone who is in need of unreceived protection.

"This is for your own good," He hisses, and then a million of him multiple. My knees almost buckle. He's multiplied before, but there were  _never_ this many of him, I swear.

They blink, and their eyes turn into the black pits I've always seen them as. I am hyperventilating again. This is worse than the box. I cringe back, arms over my head, absolutely humiliated. I wait for the blow. I hear the sickening sound of the belt cracking against skin, but I feel no pain. My eyes open and my arms fall.

The belt is around Tris's arm. Any fear in me is gone. I am infuriated. It is worse than the night I saw her dangling over the chasm. It's worse than any anger I've felt toward Marcus for what he did to me and my mother. Because I care more about Tris than I ever have about myself or anyone else and he is hurting her.

I was about to do something, anything—pull her into my arm, kiss her hair, punch all his faces in—but then Tris does it for me. She yanks, and the belt releases from his grasp. She grips it tighter and begins to beat him with it.

My sweet, tiny, fearless Tris begins beating my abusive father with a belt.

And my anger is replaced with a warmth unlike anything I've ever felt. It fills every cell.

And then Marcus cries out and dives at her with claw-like nails.

He'll never hurt her again. I push her behind me and tense up, fists clenched, ready to kill him if he even thinks of touching her.

And then the simulation is over. We did it.  _She_ did it.

Lights flick on, and Tris begins speaking. "That's it? Those were your worst fears? Why do you only have four... Oh. That's why they call you—" She turns to look at me and cuts off. I can't even imagine what my face looks like. I am overwhelmed with emotion, not something that happens to me often. She just saved me. In so many ways. All I want to do is hold her.

So I do. I reach out and pull her against me, letting my lips move in patterns around her cheek, burning with a purpose. I know this is stupid, that she could push me away at any second. But I am letting myself be vulnerable tonight, so I may as well put all of me out there.

I tighten my arms around her shoulders and bury my face in her soft neck. I am so lucky to have found her, to have her in my hold. I never want to let her go. Because there will never be another girl who could even dream of comparing to her.

She has been frozen in my arms since I first started touching her, but now she seems to realize what it means for me to put myself out there, and she puts her arms around me. My heart beats faster than it did in the box, which is seriously saying something.

"Hey," she murmurs. "We got through it."

I lift my head out of her neck and look at her. She keeps her arms around me. I take this as permission to keep touching her. I run my fingers through her soft blonde hair and tuck it behind her ear. I find a different piece, a stray, and begin playing with it absentmindedly. I twirl it around my fingers as we watch each other silently.

"You got me through it," I tell her when I find my voice, my chest throbbing. I love her so much it physically hurts.

"Well," She clears her throat quietly. "It's easy to be brave when they're not my fears."

She drops her hold on me and wipes her hands on her pants. I make her nervous. Good.

But there's no way I'm going to stop touching her. Not tonight. I take her hand in mine. "Come on," I tell her. "I have something else to show you."


	19. The Kiss

I have never experienced anything like holding Tris's hand in mine as we walked to the secret spot only I knew about. Her hand was warm in mine, and it set me on fire.

She doesn't seem to know what she's doing—her hand will go slack in mine, and then she'll suddenly be gripping my fingers like her life depends on it. I don't mind, though, because I'm the same way. We're both originally from Abnegation. We're not the best at casual touching.

But I like it, having her hand in mine. It's comforting. I let my finger trace down her palm, painting a trail of fire. She shudders and I smile to myself.

"So. . . Four fears," She says after a minute.

"Four fears then; four fears now," I nod. "They haven't changed, so I keep going in there, but... I still haven't made any progress."

"You can't be fearless, remember? Because you still care about things. About your life."

I almost smile, because just about all the  _things_ I care about are  _her._

"I know," I say. I guide her along the edge of the Pit in a comfortable silence for a little while.

"You were going to tell me about your aptitude test results," she reminds me quietly.

"Ah," I scratch the back of my neck with the hand that isn't twined with hers. I haven't lied to her since the day I met her, and I don't want to start now. But this isn't something I can safely tell her. "Does it matter?"

"Yes. I want to know."

"How demanding you are," I smile. I can remember a time when I was bothered by her curiosity, knowing it wasn't good for her. Now it's just amusing, yet another trait I love.

I lead her around the rocks until I find a flat one we can sit on. I sit and dangle my legs. She sits beside me and does the same.

I reluctantly let her hand go. "These are things I don't tell people, you know. Not even my friends."

She folds her hands and looks at me.

I phrase my words carefully. "My result was as expected," I say slowly. "Abnegation."

"Oh." I watch disappointment flood her face, and it feels like my stomach dropped to the bottom of the chasm. Great, now I've upset her.

"But you chose Dauntless anyway?" She asked.

"Out of necessity."

"Why did you have to leave?"

I couldn't look at her anymore. I am too ashamed. I left because I was a coward, and everyday here before I met her was a reminder of that.

"You had to get away from your dad," she says quietly. "Is that why you don't want to be a Dauntless leader? Because if you were, you might have to see him again?"

I shrug. "That, and I've always felt that I don't quite belong among the Dauntless. Not the way they are now, anyway."

"But you're... incredible." She seems to say without thinking. My chest warms.  _She definitely likes me._ She clears her throat awkwardly and says "I mean by Dauntless standards. Four fears is unheard of. How could you not belong here?"

I shrug again. The Dauntless are cruel, and I know cruelty all too well. I came here to escape that, not to be someone who causes it. "I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different. All your life you've been training to forget yourself, so when you're in danger, it becomes your first instinct. I could belong in Abnegation just as easily."

Her face falls and she looks down. "Yeah, well, I left abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be."

"That's not entirely true," I assure her, smiling. How could she possibly think that? "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend," still kicking myself for that, "who hit my dad with a belt to protect me—that selfless girl, that's not you?"

The girl who didn't get her peers kicked out of Dauntless even after they tried to kill her, the girl who held me while I hyperventilated in a box, the girl who  _took the blow for me_ when no one else ever has, that girl.

"You've been paying close attention, haven't you?"

I feel my stomach sink. Even though I'd decided tonight was the night I'd finally put myself out there, finally tell her everything, including how I feel, I am scared. I am terrified. I really made myself vulnerable enough today.

"I like to observe people."

"Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you're a terrible liar."

I feel everything in me lurch. I have to tell her. So I put my hand next to hers, lining our fingers up carefully. Her hand is so tiny, practically half the size of mine. Her fingers are narrow, much like the rest of her. Her nails are relatively short and unpainted. I feel her looking at me hand, just as I'm studying hers.

"Fine," I lean my face close to hers, so close that we'd be breathing the same air, but she stopped breathing as soon as I got close. I let my eyes move from her curved chin to her soft lips to her long nose, and there is nothing I have ever wanted that compares to the way I want to kiss her right now. "I watched you because I like you." That's an understatement. I meet her gaze. She blushes, and I can feel the heat of it against my face. "And don't call me 'Four,' okay? It's nice to hear my name again."

Her already pink cheeks are now a bright red. "But you're older than I am,  _Tobias."_

I smile. Her voice wraps around my name like a caress. How can she possibly think that age is a factor? I love  _her,_ my Tris, the selflessly brave person who can take care of herself. I don't care about the sixteen year old girl.

"Yes, that two-year gap really is  _insurmountable,_ isn't it?"

"I'm not trying to be self-deprecating," She tells me, her voice full of some emotion I don't understand, "I just don't get it. I'm younger. I'm not pretty, I—"

My laugh cuts her off. She just said that she's  _not pretty._  Pretty, as if that word could even  _begin_ to describe her! I lean forward and kiss her temple. My mouth bursts into flames when my lips touch her skin.

"Don't pretend," she says, her voice shaking and breathless. "You know I'm not. I'm not ugly, but I am certainly not pretty."

I could spend the next week or so arguing with her, trying to convince her that she is so much more than beautiful, but I know it'd be a moot point. Her mind is set, and she'll never believe anything else.

"Fine," I surrender. "You're not pretty."  _You're_   _beautiful, inside and out._ "So?" I lean in and kiss her cheek, because now that I've finally told her how I feel, there's nothing that keep me from touching her now—unless, of course, she tells me to stop, but she won't. I know she won't. "I like how you look," I continue, "You're deadly smart. You're brave. And even though you found out about Marcus..." I feel my insides melt a little bit and my voice softens, "You aren't giving me that look. Like I'm a kicked puppy or something."

"Well, you're not."

I feel happy, strong, and undeniably in love in that moment. My heart pounds fast and loud. This time, when I feel the urge to kiss her, I don't force it back down. I touch her face and lean in close, letting out lips brush, hesitant. She's let me kiss her forehead, temple, and cheek, but her  _lips?_ That's new territory, and I'm afraid to overstep boundaries. Any fire I thought I felt when I kissed her before was nothing compared to this. There was no pressure, I wasn't  _kissing_ her yet, just touching my lips to hers, like two hands might brush against each other before they twine.

But the amazing part is that Tris isn't moving away. She's letting me do this, she's letting me kiss her. I can't help but grin, and then I realize that I haven't  _actually_ kissed her yet, so I press my lips more firmly, yet still softly to hers.

 _God,_ her lips were soft, and warm, and I swear my heart stopped beating and took off twice as fast as healthy. It ignited a fire not only on my lips, my hands, everywhere that touched her, but my insides were on fire, too. My heart, my stomach, my head—everything is intense, everything is burning.

She's stiff under my hands and lips, though, so I pull away. Her eyes are wide, but she doesn't move away from me, so I decide to try again. I take her face firmly between my hands and kiss her again, more sure of myself this time.

The flames dance in my chest and stomach, and my lips and hands tingle. I feel Tris's eyelashes against my cheekbones as she closes her eyes. She puts her arm around me, tracing her fingers up the sensitive skin at the back of my neck, into my hair. I shiver and tug her even closer.

We do this for a few minutes, and when we finally stop kissing—my heart can't handle much more—I take her hand and pull her to our feet so we can walk back to reality together. My mind is reeling, I'm flying. Tris likes me. The confirmed knowledge of this makes me happier than I have ever been in my entire life. Now that I know what it is like to hold her, to kiss her, to have her know everything, I will never accept anything less. I am different than I was before tonight. I am an entirely new man, all because of my Tris.


	20. The Slap

I look at myself in the mirror for a really long time. Are my lips puffy? No? They feel like it. And there's still a small fire burning in the pit of my stomach. I barely sleep at all last night. When I did finally fall asleep, I dreamt for the first time, not of Marcus, of torture, but of something much better. In my dream, Tris came over to my apartment, and we laid on my bed, and I held her in my arms all night. We didn't necessarily  _do_ anything, I just held her and kissed her and it was perfect.

And then I woke up. Is it pathetic that I miss her? That just yesterday I was kissing her and holding her and today I miss her?

I pull the razor along my head, giving myself an Abnegation haircut. It might be foolish of me, people might ask questions, but yesterday with Tris reminded me that I can't deny or dismiss my roots. I will always be Abnegation-born, I will always be Marcus Eaton's son.

But I like the way my name sounds on her tongue. The way she says it... Her voice wraps around each sound like a caress. I love it.

I love her.

I look at myself in the mirror. If I could, I'd run my fingers through my hair. How am I supposed to do this? I can't walk into that cafeteria and grab her waist, pulling her to my chest and kissing her. I can't. I wish I could, but I  _can't._ Peter would run to Max and tell him that I'm having an inappropriate relationship with an initiate. I'd get in trouble, lose my position, and Tris's ranking would be called a lie, and she's most likely get kicked out.

I groan and begin pacing. I have to do something.

And then it becomes clear. I have to  _lie._ I have to pretend she's  _just_ an initiate, pretend I'm not in love with her, just like I have been since day one. Only now it will hurt, it will be  _physically_ painful, because I know what it's like. I know what it feels like to have her fingers in my hair, her lips on mine, fire replacing blood in my veins. I know what it feels like to have her fingers curled around mine, our arms swinging between us as we walk.

I know what it's like to have her like me back.

And now I have to be deprived of that.

Suddenly, the smile I couldn't keep off my face is gone.

I leave my room and begin toward the cafeteria, dreading it.

"Four! Wait up!"

I don't even hesitate as Lauren sprints to catch up with me.

"God, Four, what's your problem?"

"I kissed her last night."

"You did  _what?"_ She squeals and I shoot her an annoyed look as she claps and bounces. "Yay! I'm happy for you! So why are you so pouty?"

I glare at her. "It's not like I can publicly date her, not now."

"Oh, Four," She draws the 'r' sound out, and more than anything in the world, I wish Tris was the other trainer and that Lauren was the initiate. "Well, at least you know she likes you, right?"

I glare at her. "That makes having to pretend there's nothing go on a thousand times harder."

Her lips press together and she tries not to smile. "Best of luck," She says and then we go into the cafeteria.

I immediately feel the burn of Tris's eyes on me, but this time it hurts. I feel like I just took a blow to the chest. In my peripheral vision, I see her lift her hand as if to wave at me, and it feels like the knife in my heart spins. I feel sick. How can I do this to her, to me, to  _us?_

I sit down next to Zeke and resist the urge to put my head in my hands. Her eyes are still on me.

Then they're gone, and it feels as though someone replaced the blood in my veins with ice water. I always feel cold when she stops looking at me, but today it's worse—so much worse.

"Hey, man, you okay?"

"No." I massage my forehead with my fingers.

"He's having girl troubles."

"Rejected, Four?"

I grind my teeth. "I am in no mood to deal with this, okay? I don't want to talk about it."

I lift my head and close my eyes. I try to cut off my emotions. I've done it before. I got sixteen years of practice, trying desperately to pretend Marcus's abuse didn't bother me.

This time when the flaming sensation occurs, I let my eyes meet hers. I can't help myself. I feel like a drug addict, denying myself makes me want her more.

I can't help but wonder what she sees in me. Does she see the burning man I feel like? Someone weak, because of how vulnerable I was? Or someone strong, for letting her in like I did?

I'm not thinking about my facial expression, but I look away quickly in case I'm revealing anything I shouldn't.

Is it possible for my heart to physically break? It feels like it, the way something in my chest seems to snap in half when her warmth leaves. I moan quietly and put my elbow on the table, my forehead against my hand. I can't do this.

"Two years ago I was afraid of spiders, suffocation, walls that inch slowly inward and trap you between them, getting thrown out of Dauntless, uncontrollable bleeding, getting run over by a train, my father's death, public humiliation, and kidnapping by men without faces. Most of you will have anywhere from ten to fifteen fears in your fear landscapes. That is the average number."

Lauren draws her speech out too much, but I don't comment, because I know how stressed out she was. She hates public speaking.

"What is the lowest number someone has gotten?" Lynn asks. I force myself to look at her. It keeps my eyes off Tris. I can literally feel her presence, and it takes everything I have to keep me from going to her, from putting my arms around her waist, from pressing her warm body against my chest and telling her I love her.

"In recent years, four," Lauren says my nickname, yanking me back, and I look at the ground. I feel flames trace my body and I keep my eyes glued to the floor. I hope she can see the shame in the way I let my shoulders sag. I hope she knows I feel terrible for doing this to us both. Goosebumps rise on my arms when the warmth leaves.

"You will not find out your number today. The simulation is set to my fear landscape program, so you will experience my fears instead of your own."

I argued with Max for an hour straight. He was trying to force me to make them use my fears, saying that Lauren has let them do this before. I argued that I only had four, they'd be repetitive and they'd be able to brace themselves and watch others before they got there. Eventually, he'd agreed.

"For the purpose of this exercise, though, each of you will only face  _one_ of my fears, to get a sense of how the simulation works."

This is why instructors aren't supposed to fall in love with initiates. Tris already has a huge advantage over the others, having successfully helped me through my whole landscape faster than I have ever made it through alone. But it's not like I  _chose_ to fall in love with her. I didn't ask for this. On the other hand, I wouldn't give it up. I wouldn't like to go back in time and never fall in love with her. I love the fire too much.

I don't pay attention to the initiates. I don't care about them. Their success doesn't affect me.

But Tris's does.

So when it's her turn, I fold my arms watch her carefully.

I can't see the simulation, but I can see the calm leave her face, and panic replaces it.

"What the hell did you give her?" I snarl the words under my breath to Lauren as Tris's face twists into the most gut-wrenching terrorized expression I've ever seen. My stomach drops to the very bottom of the chasm, and my heart is stabbed with a thousand knives. I feel sick at the look on her face.

"Kidnapping," Lauren whispers.

I curse. "She was kidnapped, nearly raped, and practically  _murdered_ recently!" I shake my head.

"We can't give her special treatment," Lauren's voice is a little angry, and I realize she's right. It feels like a punch in the stomach, but she's right. I can't protect her. As much as I wish with everything in me that I could go put my hands on her hips and reassure her, I can't.

But I also cannot stand the look on her face. It shreds my insides apart.

And then she starts screaming. It's the same scream that curdled my blood and had me running to the chasm to save her. But I can't save her from this.

Or can I?

 _"Stop!"_ The word comes out of my mouth reflexively, and I remember doing something similar when Peter practically killed her that first fight. This might be even worse.

The lights flick on and I watch in horror as she begins trembling and falls to her knees, pressing her hands to her face to stifle sobs. My chest aches.

But I'm not her Tobias right now. I wish I was, but I'm not. I'm Four, her instructor. So I have to set the record straight.

I stomp over to her and grab the top of her arms, yanking her roughly to her feet. I grind my teeth and ignore the flames that shoot up my arm at the touch.

"What the hell was that, Stiff?" The words burn my throat on the way out. It physically hurts me to do this.

"I..." She hiccups and looks at me with pained, weak eyes. I hate it. I hate myself. There isn't a person who hates me more than I do right now. She tries again to speak and fails. "I didn't..."

"Get yourself together! This is pathetic!" I try to warm my eyes, to let her see that I hate this. But it doesn't work, and I see her face change. My stomach lurches. Her face is the one she wore when I had to drag her away from Molly's bloody body. It's the face of someone who's fight just got personal, and taken to the next level.

I didn't see her hand pull back, or her arm move, but then I feel an all too familiar burn flash across my cheek. I feel blood rush up to the skin, and I stare at Tris in horror. She just  _hit_ me.

"Shut up." She pulls the arm I was unconsciously holding out of my grasp, and turns, storming out.

I run my tongue over my teeth as the door slams shut behind her. The silence of the room echoes. I taste blood in my mouth. It was a good hit. I'm a little proud of her, extremely angry, and very hurt.

"If you'll excuse me," I say flatly, turning and throwing open the same door she left through.

"Damn it," I snap, kicking the ground forcefully. I drag my hand over my face and press my fist to my mouth and set off to find her. I have to find her.


	21. The Make Up

"Tris, Tris, come on, Tris," I mumble. I am running out of places to go! I checked the dormitory, chasm, pit,  _everywhere—_ including my apartment, which was pointless, but you never know.

I sink to the ground and put my head in my hands. A million, horrible possibilities pulse through my mind—Peter getting his hands on her again, her body sinking to the bottom of the chasm, getting run over by a train,  _Eric_ getting his Divergent-hating hands on her. My blood boils, and I lurch unsteadily to my feet and start running. I run the entire perimeter of the Dauntless compound, listening carefully, checking in buildings, demanding to know if anyone had seen her. Then I started easing my way around the inside, down every street until I heard it.

I hear Eric roar the word Abnegation. I'm not as close as I'd like to be, but I'm not far. I take off running until I reach headquarters. I burst through the door. Tris's eyes dart up to me, and relief floods her expression, and a heavy weight lifts off my shoulders. She doesn't look mad at me anymore. Eric, on the other hand, whirls, infuriated.

"What are you doing?" I demand.  _What are you doing to my Tris?_

"Leave the room," Eric orders, and I almost laugh aloud. I don't take directions well, especially when the person directing is putting my girlfriend in danger.

My heart does some weird summersault when I realize that I just thought of her as my girlfriend. With the way I treated her today, I wouldn't blame her if she never looked at me again.

"No. She's just a foolish girl,"  _my foolish girl._  "There's no need to drag her here and interrogate her."

"Just a foolish girl," he makes a disgusting sound—can that even be called a snort? "If she were just a foolish girl, she wouldn't be ranked first, now would she?"

 _Here we go_ , I think. I pinch my nose and meet Tris's gaze through my fingers.  _Be vulnerable. Be weak. Be everything I know you're not._ Something very warm floods through me and I feel pain shoot through my chest. I miss her. I hate the distance between us. I want to close it, to run my fingers through her soft hair and pull her face to mine.

But she has to get safe from Eric first.

"I. . . I was just embarrassed and didn't know what do to." She shoves her hands into her pockets and looks at the ground. Pink floods her cheeks and her eyes grow wet. I watch her face carefully, doing more searching than Eric. She is fine, I decide after I studied every detail of her face. She's acting. She's doing exactly what I need her to. "I tried to. . . and. . ." She shakes her head.

"You tried to what?"

She needs help. So I decide to provide it. "Kiss me," I say. "And I rejected her, and she went running of like a five-year-old. There's really nothing to blame her for but stupidity."

He looks back and forth between us, like he's trying to picture it. I still can't picture it myself, even though it's happened, even though I  _have_ kissed her, it's still an image my brain can't comprehend.

Eric bursts into laughter and he turns to Tris.

"Isn't he a little too old for you, Tris?" He grins, and I feel my eyebrows arch unhappily. No. I'm not.

Tris wipes a tear off her cheek and doesn't address that question. Good. I don't even know how I'd respond if she agreed. "Can I go now?"

"Fine, but you are not allowed to leave the compound without supervision again, you hear me?" He turns toward me. "And  _you_. . . had better make sure none of the transfers leave this compound again. And that none of the others try to kiss you."

I roll my eyes. It was like I'd let them get close enough to try. "Fine."

Tris leaves the room and I tense my shoulders and turn to him.

"What did you say to her before I got here? She looked terrified."

"You know, Four, your soft spot for that Stiff is beginning to get a little suspicious." He moves toward me in a sickeningly predatory way.

I clench my jaw and don't respond.

"It's funny—everything I do to her affects you. How far do you think that goes, hmm?"

"Don't touch her."

He grins and clucks his tongue. "And if I do?"

I grind my teeth. "If you lay a finger on her, I swear, I will throw your useless body into the chasm and no one will even miss you."

He laughs bitterly. "Please. I don't even know what you  _see_ in her anyway. She's practically a little girl."

I shift around, getting directly in his face. "Please. Tris is twice the person you will  _ever_ be. You know nothing about her."

"And  _you_ do? Your friendliness with her, Four, is highly inappropriate."

"So is dangling an initiate over the edge of the chasm,  _Eric._ So is making me throw  _knives_ at an initiate. Don't try to make me seem like the bad person out of the two of us."

"If you like her so damn much, how come you rejected her?"

"I never said I liked her as anything more than a friend."

He snorted again. "You better watch yourself, Four."

"And you better keep your hands off her, Eric."

He laughed at my threat, and turned to leave through the back door. I caught his shoulder and spun him to face me. "I'm serious. Keep your hands off her. If you so much as  _think_ of hurting her, I'll kill you."

He shakes his head at me. "Next time she decides to pay a visit to her brother, she'll be factionless." He leaves through the back door.

I take a deep breath, and go out the main door. I had been expected to have to search the whole compound to find her again, but she was sitting on the ground, her legs pulled up, face against her arms. Her shoulders were hunched over, and seeing her so fragile, curled in on herself was worse than the slam to the face she'd given me earlier.

She hears me come and lurches to her feet, folding her arms and looking at me. For a moment, I think I'm going to be scolded. I deserve it. Hell, I basically asked for it. I was absolutely obnoxious, and then I basically bullied her in front of her peers, and then it took me way too long to find her.

But then I see her face. She looks terrified, and my stomach drops at the sight. I know Tris, and I know that isn't fear leftover from Eric. She's afraid of  _me._ Does she think I'm like my father? Is she afraid that because I was abused for so many years I find it to be acceptable to hurt her?

"What?" She demands, and her voice matches her posture—angry. But her face is still scared.

I examine her face carefully, and notice a small little mark on her cheek that wasn't there before. Did Eric hurt her? Or did someone else? Could it just be leftover flush from her act?

"Are you all right?" I reached out and let my fingers trace softly over the skin. She slaps my hand away, and my heart plummets. She hates me.

"Well," her eyes flare, and my stomach lurches. Here we go, "first I got reamed out in front of everyone, and then I had to chat with the woman who's trying to destroy my old faction, and then Eric almost tossed my friends out of Dauntless, so yeah, it's shaping up to be a pretty great day,  _Four."_

She spits my name at me, and I flinch. Part of me—Four—decides that I deserve this, her anger, her hatred. He tells me that she  _should_ use anything she can against me, that it's my fault I was so vulnerable.

But then there's the other half, Tobias.  _He_ tells me to fix this. I need to fix us.

I shake my head to clear out both personalities. I'm not Tobias or Four when I'm Tris. I don't know who I am. All I know is that I'm hers.

"Why do you care, anyway?" She demands, not done with me yet. "You can be either cruel instructor or concerned boyfriend."

I feel myself stiffen immediately. It feel like she punched me in the stomach by calling me cruel, and then made me the luckiest man on earth when she called me her boyfriend. The emotions were entirely conflicting, and I wasn't sure what to think.

Before I could stress too much, she continued. "You can't play both parts at the same time."

I decide to take my first emotion and hide the second. I scowl at her. "I am not cruel. I was protecting you this morning. How do you think Peter and his idiot friends would have reacted if they discovered that you and I were..." I wasn't about to put a label on us, not while she's mad at me. She might be mad enough to reject me. I sigh. "You would never win. They would always call your ranking a result of my favoritism rather than your skill."

Her lips part, and it takes all my strength to keep from kissing her. I miss the fire. I feel too cold.

She puts her hands on her cheeks. I wish they were my hands. "You didn't have to insult me to prove something to them."

Guilt begins chewing at my stomach. "And you didn't have to run off to your brother just because I hurt you," I feel my heart drop then, as I say the words and reality sinks in.  _I hurt her._ My Tris, my sweet Tris, hurting. She was hurting because of  _me._ "Besides—it worked, didn't it?" It was a weak attempt at making myself feel better.

"At my expense," She replies, and something in me dies. An unpleasant ache moves through my chest.

"I didn't think it would affect you this way." My eyes fall to the ground. I am an  _idiot._ Of course it hurt her. I  _rejected_ her and was undeniably terrible towards her. She should hate me. "Sometimes I forget that I can hurt you." That's no excuse. "That you are capable of being hurt."

I can't look at her. I don't  _deserve_ to look at her.

My eyes are still trained on the ground, so I see her step closer and rise on her tiptoes.

And then something miraculous happens.

The fire is back.

Tris's lips press, soft and firm, against mine, and my entire body goes up in flames. My heart stops. The oxygen is stolen from my lungs, and a whole new feeling goes through my chest. It's almost pain, but I don't think pain can feel this good. It's almost like getting shocked, the electric feeling that seems to restart my heart.

The kiss doesn't last, but the reaction does. I didn't realize how much I'd missed kissing her for the past few hours until I didn't have to miss it anymore. I was already craving her mouth again.

"You're brilliant, you know that?" Tris shakes her head. My chest warms pleasantly at the compliment, but it's not the same burn that I desire. "You always know exactly what to do."

"Only because I've been thinking about this for a long time," unable to resist, I lean down and catch her lips with mine as soon as the words are out. I welcome the flames. I break away, just enough to say, "how I would handle it, if you and I..." I trail off and pull away.

I think of the warm feeling I'd gotten, and I decide to question her. "Did I hear you call e your boyfriend, Tris?"

Does she hear the way my voice curls around her name?

"Not exactly," She shrugs and looks away. "Why? Do you want me to?"

I'm torn between laughing and telling her of  _course_ I want her to and kissing her. Instead, I slide my fingers along her neck, loving the way the tingles ran from my fingertips, along my forearm, my bicep, jolting straight to my heart. My thumbs press gently into her jaw and push her face up. I stoop down a little bit and press my forehead to hers. It takes a lot of effort to keep breathing. I feel like there's smoke polluting the oxygen in my lungs. It would make sense. I am blazing. My heart is racing. I can feel it everywhere, and I trust that she can, too, in my fingertips. I don't care. I  _want_ her to know. I want her to understand that my heart takes flight the instant we touch.

"Yes," I exhale the word, realizing too late that I just breathed all over her face. I could only hope my breath didn't smell. I smile, and then it fades. "Do you think I convinced him you're just a silly girl?"

"I hope so," she replies. "Sometimes it helps to be small. I'm not sure I convinced the Erudite, though."

I think of the information I'd discovered, and I know I need to tell her. I can't keep secrets from her. I physically cannot. "There's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?"

"Not now," Certainly not outside Dauntless headquarters. "Meet me back here at eleven thirty. Don't tell anyone where you're going."

She nods, and I turn and leave.

I realize that I didn't say goodbye. I turn around, but she's gone. I take a deep breath, and keep going. I fold my arms, missing her warmth, her fire. Eleven thirty couldn't come quick enough.


	22. The Train

I fold my arms and squint into the darkness. I see a shape move. My heart races. Tris.

I reach for her immediately. My fingers curl around hers, and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. That's the thing about being around Tris. She takes away pain that I don't even notice is present until it's gone.

I drag her onto the train with me. I estimated her weight to be more than it was, and she falls into me, her cheek pressed to my chest. My heart lurches, and my skin sets on fire. I run my fingertips down her arms and embrace the flames.

"What is it you need to tell me?"

"Not yet," I tell her, lowering myself to the floor and pulling her with me.

I turn to face her and suck in a breath. In that moment she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Her eyes are big and blue in the moonlight, burning holes into my very soul. Her hair is blowing around her perfectly, as if it were staged for a movie. Her lips look soft and inviting.

I press my hands to her face, enjoying the warmth of her, hooking my index fingers behind her ears and pulling her towards me.

The train is screeching, but I pay the sounds no mind. Her lips are even softer than they look, and they ignite something in me that I didn't know was there. I'd never dated anyone—or even  _thought_ about dating anyone—before Tris, and I'd certainly never wanted anyone this way before. It was more than physical lust. I want Tris to be  _mine._ I want to be able to hold her hand and walk around the compound. I want to beat Peter up for every hurtful thing he's ever said to her. I want to tell everyone she's my girlfriend—fiancée— _wife._ I want her forever.

I duck my head down and press my lips under her jaw. She tilts her head back and the flames wrap around my chest and wake up a group of butterflies in my stomach. The train lurches, and I feel Tris lose her balance momentarily. She puts her hand on me to steady her.

Her hand is on my hip, I can feel her against my bone, and I bite back a moan. The flames find a way to get  _hotter._ The fire takes me over. I can't breathe. I can't think. I can't feel anything other than Tris and the havoc she's causing inside me.

Then she shifts, pulling herself onto my lap. In that moment, it wasn't just me on fire. It was  _everything._ The oxygen I inhale is too hot; it burns its way into my lungs. She pulls my mouth back to hers and I swear my heart stopps beating entirely. I sit up straighter now that I don't have to bend to reach her lips. I am suddenly unaware as to why people act like hell's flames would be  _bad._ I'm drowning in fire and I am loving every last second of it.

My fingers run down her spine and I feel her shudder. Does she feel it, too? Is the heat burning its way into her very being? Is she on fire?

Even if she's not on fire, I'm smoldering. I am practically a space heater. I let myself unzip her jacket. She pushes her hands against her thighs. I can feel the added pressure against mine. It's like she's holding a lit match to my legs.

I break our kiss and lean forward, gazing at her collarbone, at the tattoos there. I paint them with fire, trailing my fingers over each bird. I smile.

"Birds," I say aloud. My voice sounds off to my own ears. I wonder if she hears it, too. "Are they crows? I keep forgetting to ask."

Her lips tremble a bit when she smiles, and I know the feeling. I am shaking all over.

"Ravens," She corrects me, "One for each member of my family. You like them?"

I gaze at the delicate birds. They're small, likely weightless, just like the beautiful girl still sitting on me. I can't find my voice, so I pull her even closer. I press my lips against each bird, loving the mind-blowing heat.

When I look up, her head is tilted back slightly, her lips kiss-swollen and parted, her eyes closed.

I could hold her like this for the rest of my life. I  _want_ to. I don't need anything else. If she's in my arms, I'll live forever.

But the train has slowed and I know if we wait any longer, we'll miss it. I trace patterns on her cheek with my fingertips. "I hate to say this," she has  _no_ idea how much I hate to say it, "but we have to get up now."

She nods slowly, and her eyes open and she carefully gets up off my lap.

I gasp aloud. The air is like an ice-cold slap to the face without her warmth. Her fire typically lingers after we kiss, but she's so close—within my reach—and it's physically painful to not touch her when I can, and that takes away the heat.

I grab her hand and the warmth floods up my arm and all over. I exhale in relief and pull her with me to the door.

I point at Erudite headquarters. "Apparently the city ordinances don't mean anything to them, because their lights will be on all night."

She frowns. "No one else has noticed?"

"I'm sure they have, but they haven't done anything to stop it. It may be because they don't want to cause a problem over something so small." I shrug. Her eyes are trained on my face, and I wonder what I look like. Are my lips swollen like hers? They feel it. "But it made me wonder what the Erudite are doing that requires night light."

I turn to face her, leaning against the wall. I take a deep breath. "Two things you should know about me. The first is that I am deeply suspicious of people in general." Thanks Evelyn. "It is in my nature to expect the worst of them." Thanks Marcus. "And the second is that I am unexpectedly good with computers."

She nods, her eyes glued to my face. I wonder if she can read me, see how nervous I am, understand that I've never let anyone see this much of me, that I never told anyone this.

"A few weeks ago, before training started," before I met her, back when I didn't have to worry about Eric and the Divergent, "I was at work and I found a way into the Dauntless secure files. Apparently we are not as skilled as the Erudite are at security, and what I discovered was what looked like war plans. Thinly veiled commands, supply lists, maps. Things like that. And those files were sent by Erudite."

"War?" Wind blows her hair into her face, but she brushes it away before I can. She looks away from me for a second and I wonder what she's thinking. Then her eyes are back on me. "War on Abnegation?"

It feels like the tattoo on my back stings momentarily. Abnegation holds a lot of bad memories, but it's where I'm from, where Tris is from. We can't ignore our roots.

 _Her family,_  I realize. She's not bothered because of her past there, she's bothered because of what is  _still_ there. I realize that I hadn't once thought of what this war would mean for Marcus. I'm more concerned about what it will do to the Priors. Is it possible that I care for her family more than I do my own?

I take her hands in mine. I won't baby her, but I want to be comforting, reassuring. But I can't. "The faction that controls the government. Yes."

Her face get's a green undertone to it and I feel like I just got punched in the chest. The war hasn't even begun yet and she's in pain. I peel my eyes away from her. I can't stand to see the hurt in her eyes.

"All those reports are supposed to stir up dissension against Abnegation. Evidently the Erudite now want to speed up the process. I have no idea what to do about it... or what could even be done."

"But why would Erudite team up with Dauntless?"

I don't have to answer. Tris is smart, and she figures it out on her own. We train our sixteen year olds to fight to the death. Why  _wouldn't_ an army want to team up with us? We make better team mates than enemies, that's for sure.

Her eyes bulge. "They're going to use us."

"I wonder how they plan to get us to fight."

They can't physically attack us, we're trained for that. What will they do, beg us? No. We won't allow it. But they're the Erudite, so something has to be planned. But what could they do to persuade us?

Her hair is blown into her face and she ignores it. I do, too. I'm deep in thought, trying to figure out what they could use against us.

"I don't know."

...

"Fear landscapes today," Lauren says casually. I ignore her. "How do you think Tris will do—any better than last time? Will you get hit again?"

I spin around and glare at her. "Just leave us the hell alone."

I am standing next to the door leading to the fear landscape room, and I'm feeling wound pretty tight. I'm not worried about Tris, not really. Even if she does terrible with the fear landscape, she should still be Dauntless. If she's not, that's fine. We'll become factionless together. That was plan before her originally. And if that happens, then we'll be two less weapons for the Erudite.

And  _that's_ what I'm worried about. Some Dauntless are evil enough to go kill a bunch of unarmed, unprepared, defenseless people, but most aren't. And the Abnegation won't fight back. I know that. They're  _selfless._ Killing anyone—even the army attacking them—would be selfish.

But what are the Erudite going to do about those who  _won't_ fight? Hold guns to our heads? Good luck. Dauntless are the ones who  _have_ guns.

If Tris and I remain Dauntless, we won't fight. I couldn't risk going to kill a bunch of innocent people. And Tris most  _definitely_ won't fight—she knows all the Abnegation, and two of them are her parents.

So we'll be dead, then, I guess.

I've somewhat prepared myself for that idea, and I've decided that as long as I die before her, I can unhappily accept that fate. But if they kill Tris  _first,_ if I have to  _watch_ My Tris go lifeless, I'll be begging them to kill me. I'll be hurling myself into the Chasm. I can't imagine that kind of pain, and I'll do anything to avoid experiencing it.

I feel a quick burn—she's here and looking around. Her eyes only hover on me for a split second. I wonder if my expression is as tormented as I feel.

"Four. God, you are  _the_ worst listener."

I ignore Lauren again. She'd likely been talking the entire time I was over thinking.

"Hey, Tris! You can sit on my lap, if you want."

My eyes find the face that matches the voice—Uriah. Zeke's little brother. My jaw clenches.

"Tempting," She calls back and my teeth grind. "It's fine. I like to stand."

"Four, if you don't stop that you'll be toothless."

I stop grinding my teeth and force my shoulders to relax. Tris rejected him. I have no reason to be jealous.

"You're up," Lauren pushes my shoulder a little too hard and I glare at her. She moves to go soothe Marlene, who had just experienced her fear landscape.

"Transfers, the order in which you go through the final test was taken from your rankings as they now stand. So Drew will go first, and Tris will go last."

Does anyone else hear the way my voice wraps around her name like it's the most important word in the sentence and everything else should just be ignored?

Tris stands in the back, just over two feet away from me. The space is charged with electricity. I want to close it, to hold her hand in mine. I want to kiss her cheek and tell her that I will take care of her future no matter what happens from here.

But I can't, so I don't.

I ignore everyone. I focus on Tris, the sounds of her breathing, the way I can see her fidget nervously in my peripheral vision.

"Tris." Eric calls her up, and she moves to go be injected with the orange liquid.

My stomach twists. It feels  _wrong_ to have someone else do this. I know that Eric is fully capable of injecting her in the right place with the right serum, but I wish it was me. I wish that I could take her hair in my hands and allow my fingers to brush over the sensitive skin at the back of her neck as I did so. I wish I could hold her gaze as I inject her, trying to silently offer support.

"Ready?"

Be brave, my Tris.


	23. The Seven Fears

Tris' body stiffens, and I tense, too. Can I even  _do_ this? It'll take everything I have not to break into that room and hold her in my arms. I want to help her through it like she'd helped me through my fears

She suddenly crouches and I watch her carefully.

Her hands find something in the grass and she shifts her arms around to point at her shoulder, her hands curled around something that I assume was an invisible gun. Of course she knew how to make what she wants to happen work. She's Divergent, she's had practice.

She whirls and begins shooting almost frenziedly, but her face is calm. She's in control. She can do this.

She puts her arms down and begins feeling the ground—the next fear already.

She stands back up and slams her ands against an invisible wall. She pauses and then pounds her fists in that same spot repeatedly. She does this for too long—it wastes time. But finally, that obstacle ends.

She falls to the ground suddenly and I lurch forward, toward the door. Lauren must have returned to my side, because she grabs my shoulders and yanks me back. "Relax," she hisses.

She wraps her arms around something invisible and waits. She suddenly jerks forward and cringes. I feel my every muscle stiffen.

Then, to my complete horror, her legs go flying up in the air and her arms spin around and she starts twitching around, moving, trying to regain control.

"What the hell is this fear?" The words come out from under my breath before I can even think about it.

"Four."

I ignore her.

I don't understand what Tris does, but she manages to get to her feet, and then she is running.

Then she stops. She looks around suddenly. Then she speaks. I can't hear her words, but she's talking. She appears to be confident. That's good.

She tugs her hands through her hair as that fear appears to end. I am trying to keep count. I watch panic take over her features. It was an expression I'd seen before—the same one as when she'd faced Lauren's fear.

"Kidnapping," I whisper. I think back to how Peter, Drew, and Al attacked her. They probably kidnapped her. That's probably the source. My poor Tris, she's more haunted by that than I'd thought.

She slides something open and then holds her arms out in front of her—another invisible gun. Her weapon of choice.

She screams. It's much louder than her speaking voice, I hear it, and my blood runs cold. It's the same scream that I'd heard when I she was being held over the chasm.

"My Tris," I mumble, everything in me desperate to go to her.

"Four. Relax. She is Dauntless. Let her do this."

_She is Dauntless. Tris is dauntless. My Tris is Dauntless._

She sits down, and then turns, and crawls. I watch her, and then she smiles a little bit and stands.

That fear is done. I breathe out a sigh. Good.

Her eyes widen. She doesn't look afraid, though. She looks cautious. She glances over her shoulder and stiffens.

Her lips shift, pressing together and out. What is she  _doing?_

She doesn't move like she's afraid. She closes her eyes and a second later she shivers.

The Dauntless leaders start  _laughing._ I've never seen them be so unprofessional.  _What is going on?_

She pushes something invisible and presses her hands to her head. Her head tips back a little, like some unseen being is touching her.

She pulls back and says something. Then she grabs the invisible thing and pushes it into something. She shoves herself against it and her lips change shape again. Her hands curl around something, and she doesn't seem afraid at all.

Then the fear ends and she starts laughing, pressing her hands to her face. I am dying to know what that fear was. Will it bother her if I ask?

She stiffens. She curls her hands. Another gun?

She speaks again. God, I wish I could hear her.

She appears to be on the verge of tears. My poor Tris.

Her hand uncurls. Her muscles relax. She dropped the gun. Why?

She spins around and closes her eyes.

The lights come on. I relax. She's okay.

My Tris is okay.


	24. The Talk

She falls to her knees and wraps her arms around herself. My entire body lurches forward, and I'm moving toward her unthinkingly.

"Four."

"No," I snarl. "She's my initiate, I can go see her."

Eric grins knowingly at me when I go with them into the room. I don't respond to him. My eyes are on Tris.

She gets up when we come into the room and I find myself checking to see if any injuries appeared on her body. When I don't see any, I relax. I smile at her.

"Congratulations, Tris. You have successfully completed your final evaluation."

Her face twists into a grimace, her attempt at a smile, and more than anything, I wish I could go to her, put my arms around her waist and tell her I love her.

I blink in shock when I realize I've never actually told her I love her. Maybe today would be the day... After this, we can go back to my apartment and I'll tell her.

"Thanks."

"There is one more thing before you can go and get ready for the welcoming banquet." I stiffen as the woman offers him the needle. They'd injected me this morning. Getting injected myself didn't bother me nearly as much injecting Tris does.

"At least you aren't afraid of needles. This will inject you with a tracking device that will be activated only if you are reported missing. Just a precaution."

My stomach lurches at the idea of them having the ability to stalk her.

"How often do people go missing?" Tris is frowning, clearly objecting to the injecting. That's my girl.

"Not often," Eric smirks at her and her nose twitches. I want to throw him away from her. "This is a new development, courtesy of the Erudite." Her entire body locks into place, the same way mine did when he told me the same thing. "We have been injecting every Dauntless throughout the day, and I assume all other factions will comply as soon as possible."

Her eyes are full of fear, and my hands clench into fists.

"All right," her voice cracks. My heart breaks.

She pulls her hair to the side, and again, all I can think is  _it should be me_ as Eric cleans her neck and injects her. "The banquet is in two hours. Your ranking among the other initiates, Dauntless-born included, will be announced then. Good luck."

Everyone leaves except me. I keep my eyes on her. I gesture for her to follow me, and she does. I smile at her.

"I heard a rumor that you only had seven obstacles to face. Practically unheard of."

"You... you weren't watching the simulation?"

She sounds nervous. I can't imagine why. "Only on the screens. The Dauntless leaders are the only ones who see the whole thing. They seemed impressed."

"Well, seven fears isn't as impressive as four, but it will suffice."

Her words hurt me somewhere deep inside. Does she feel like she's less than me? Does she realize she's the most important thing in my world?

"I would be surprised if you weren't ranked first."

People smile proudly at my Tris, pointing at her and clapping her and touching her shoulder. She's clearly uncomfortable, cringing into my side. I smile a little bit, glad that she at least takes comfort in my presence.

"I have a question." Her teeth sink into her lower lip, and I suddenly remember the way it felt when she kissed me on the train. "How much did they tell you about my fear landscape?"

"Nothing, really. Why?"  _What don't you want me to know?_

"No reason." She kicks the ground. I take a deep breath.

"Do you have to go back to the dormitory?" I can do this. I can tell her I love her. I already told her just about everything. I can do it again. "Because if you want some peace and quiet, you can stay with me until the banquet."

She makes a face.

"What is it?"

"Let's go."

...

My heart pounds noisily as I hold the door for her. She steps into my apartment, and I close the door behind us.  _What do I do now?_ I take my shoes off, just for something to do.

"Want some water?"

"No thanks." She seems nervous too. She claps her hands in front of her. This simple little gesture calms me. No matter how inexperienced with relationships I am, she's the same way. We can learn together.

"You okay?" I touch her cheek gently and let the fire take me. My fingers slide into her soft hair. It ignites a fire in my heart. I don't even want to kiss her anymore. It is necessary for my survival. I  _need_ her.

I smile at her and lean forward and press my lips to hers. My already speeding heart goes insane. I am burning.

I carefully push her jacket off her shoulders. The fire doubles. The less fabric separating us, the hotter the fire.

She suddenly cringes and starts shoving me away from her. I move back at once, and I feel my stomach drop. The fire is gone, replaced with ice water as she covers her face with her hands. What did that fear landscape  _do_ to her?

"What? What's wrong?"

She starts to shake her head, and something in me snaps. I told her  _everything._ I exposed all of my secrets to this girl, and she's told me next to nothing in return.

"Don't tell me it's nothing." I need to know. I have to help her. "Hey. Look at me." I didn't mean for my voice to be so harsh, but her silence was painful.

I take her arm, trying to move her hands from her face.

Her arms fall to her sides and she meets my gaze. There's so much pain in her expression that it feels like I took a knife to the chest. I freeze and gaze at her.  _What did I do?_

"Sometimes I wonder what's in it for you. This...whatever it is."

Her words are meaningless. I look at her blankly for a second, just trying to wrap my head around it. Does she not  _realize_ that she makes me  _happy?_

"What's in it for me," I step away from her. She's  _blind._ "You're an idiot, Tris."

"I am  _not_ an idiot. Which is why I know that it's a little weird that, of all the girls you could have chosen, you chose me. So if you're just looking for ... um, you know ...  _that..."_

 _Of all the girls you could have chosen_. She acts like I'm something so amazing, like I have a thousand girls, just lined up to date me. Then the rest of her rant sunk in.

"What?" I say, blank, "Sex?" Is she insane? I am in  _love_ with her, and she thinks all I want is to have  _sex_ with her? "You know, if that was all I wanted, you probably wouldn't be the first person I would go to."

Okay, that came out wrong. I'd  _meant_ to point out that she had class, had  _standards,_ but it came out sounding like she wasn't attractive.

Her entire face crumpled, and the pain that shot through me was alarming. I had never thought that someone else's pain could hurt me so thoroughly.

She presses her hands to her stomach and looks away from me. "I'm going to leave now," she whispers.

"No, Tris." I reach out and catch her arm.  _I'm not letting you leave me. You mean more to me than anything else in the world, please. Please don't leave me. I love you._

She shoves me and I grab that hand, too, holding our arms crossed between us. "I'm sorry I said that," I tell her honestly. "What I  _meant_ was that you aren't like that. Which I knew when I met you," And I was serious. The idea of using Tris for sex was ... unthinkable. It hadn't crossed my mind at all.

"You were an obstacle in my fear landscape," She whispers, her lower lip trembling. "Did you know that?"

For a millisecond, her words were senseless. Then all of a sudden I felt sick. I dropped her hands and took a step back.  _No._

 _I'm not Marcus,_ I want to yell.  _I swear, I will never touch you. I promise._

"What?" Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I misunderstood... "You're  _afraid_ of me?"

"Not you," She bites her lip and I feel myself relax a little bit. She's not afraid I'll hurt her. I'll never hurt her and she knows that. "Being with you . . . with anyone. I've never been involved with someone before, and . . . you're older, and I don't know what your expectations are and . . ."

"Tris." I realize that I'm being Four, not Tobias, and I feel guilty. She's being vulnerable and here I am, being her instructor when I should be her boyfriend. "I don't know what delusion you're operating under, but this is all new to me, too."

"Delusion?" She looks at me, confused, and it's my turn to feel vulnerable. What male eighteen year old hasn't had a girlfriend? "You mean you haven't..." She raises her eyebrows suggestively. "Oh.  _Oh._ I just assumed... Um, you know."

"Well, you assumed wrong." Your older boyfriend is still a virgin. I wonder if this makes her happy or uncomfortable.

"You can tell me anything you know," I tell her softly, taking her face in my hands. "I am kinder than I seemed in training, I promise."

_I love you. I'll never hurt you. Never be afraid of me. I'll keep you safe._

I kiss her forehead, loving the fire. I kiss her nose. It burns stronger.

I take a deep breath. She's scared of this, and I need to be careful with her. If I accidentally push her too far... I see her hurt expression again as I very gently press my lips to hers.

Moving slowly, always being aware of my actions, I put my hands on her shoulders. I make sure no part of me is touching her anywhere that might bother her.

My fingertips touch something stiff and foreign on her shoulder. A bandage? My stomach tightens. Did someone hurt her?

"Are you hurt?"

"No. It's another tattoo. It's healed, I just ...wanted to keep it covered up."

"Can I see?" I ask without thinking, and then wonder if it will make her uncomfortable. But she just nods, so I relax. She pulls her sleeve down and I look at her shoulder for a long time. It's more of her skin than I'm used to seeing. What would happen if I kissed it? How would the fire react?

I ignore the irrational urge and softly run my fingers over the skin, feeling them rise and fall with her bones. Fire shoots up my arm and into my heart. I pull back the bandage and smile.

"I have the same one," I tell her, "On my back." I'm ridiculously happy with this discovery. We're more alike than I'd realized.

"Really? Can I see it?"

Stalling, I put the bandage back in place and fix her shirt. "Are you asking me to undress, Tris?"

She laughs. I can hear the nerves in it. "Only... partially."

I nod. It's my turn to be nervous. I feel pathetically shy as I unzip my sweatshirt and throw it onto a chair. My face feels hot. I feel like a stripper.

Tris' eyes are locked on me, and she's not laughing anymore. Her stare makes me uneasy. I love Tris, and I love the fire she causes, but I'm exposed and vulnerable. I am putty in her hands. I will be whatever she wants me to be.

I pull my shirt off my head and I am so tense I feel sick. The fire trail left by her eyes runs over my chest and stomach immediately and I look away. Her gaze lingers on the flames that cover my side.

"What is it?" I feel her eyes on my face.

"I don't invite many people to look at me," I mumble stupidly. "Any people, actually."

"I can't imagine why," She murmurs. Her voice is a soft embrace, and I find myself relaxing automatically at the sound of it. "I mean, look at you."

She walks around me. I try not to jump when I feel her hot breath on my back. Desire tears through me like a spark to gasoline.

I feel her eyes trace the Dauntless and Abnegation symbols, and I know she understands those, sees them as reminders of who we both are and where we came from. Then I feel her look at the other symbols: Candor, Erudite, and Amity. I hurry to explain myself.

"I feel like we've made a mistake. We've all started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the process of bolstering out own. I don't want to do that. I want to be brave, and selfless,  _and_ smart,  _and_ kind,  _and_ honest." I feel like my throat is closing up. Why doesn't she move so that I can see her face? "I continually struggle with kindness."

"No one's perfect," She breathes warm air down my spine. I try not to moan. "It doesn't work that way. One bad thing goes away, and another bad thing replaces it."

How can she even form coherent thoughts right now? My brain is fried, my heart beating out an uneven and likely unhealthy rhythm.

To make matters worse, she runs her fingertips over my back, and I know she's touching our matching Abnegation symbol. My breathing grows labored at her touch. I can't tell if I'm not wearing enough clothes, or if she's wearing too many, but all I know is that I don't like this state. I feel overheated and the fire—already deadly when I was fully clothed—got much stronger, and I wondered if my skin was hot to the touch. Was the fire making me so hot that I was sweating?

"We have to warn them, you know. Soon."

"I know. We will." But I wasn't worried about Abnegation now. Right now, I am a teenage girl who wants his girlfriend. I turn to face her, and I wonder if I look as crazed with desire as I feel. I try to understand her expression. She doesn't  _look_ afraid. She looks mildly uncomfortable, though.

"Is this scaring you, Tris?"

"No." Her voice cracks and she clears her throat. "Not really. I'm only...afraid of what I want."

"What do you want?"

She doesn't answer. Her eyes drop to my stomach and stay there, like she's embarrassed to meet my gaze. All she's doing is making my stomach burn with even  _more_ desire.

"Me?" I ask, praying the answer is yes. Right now, there's nothing more than her.

She nods, and I nod too. I need to feel her hands on me. I hope I'm not pushing her too far. I reach out and take her hands, putting her palms to my burning stomach.

The fire rages, and pleasure shoots through my entire body. I hold back another moan. This is ridiculous. A single touch shouldn't feel so good. I push her hands up my chest, exhaling sharply in bliss. I hold her hands to my neck and meet her gaze. The fire burns hotter. I moan under my breath.

"Someday," I say, glad that my voice doesn't reflect my inner fire, "if you still want me, we can..." I clear my throat. "We can..."

She smiles and throws her arms around me, pressing her face into my chest. I try to breathe. Her cheek is right where my heart is. I hope she can't feel my absolutely racing heartbeat.

"Are you afraid of me, too, Tobias?"

My pulse quickens when she says my name and I know she can feel my heart. It's just as well. She's the only one who can make my pulse do this, she deserves to know what she does to me.

"Terrified," I replied, and it's not a lie. If all she has to do is touch my stomach to get my heart diving out of my chest, that she has so much power over me. She can drive me insane. And I will sit here and willingly let her.

She kisses the hollow of my throat and I can't breathe. I press my hand against her back, holding her close. "Maybe you won't be in my fear landscape anymore," She murmurs, breathing against my throat and chest, getting a more than audible reaction from my heart. I duck my head down and kiss her.

"Then everyone can call you Six," I say back.

"Four and Six," She replies, and my heart sings at the words.

I lean down and embrace the flames, pressing my lips to hers, my arm wrapped tightly around her waist, her hands resting on my chest, right over my heart so she can feel the reaction she creates. I wonder if she knows that I belong to her entirely.


	25. The Public

I break the kiss, not wanting to push her too far, and I take her hands in mine, pulling her over to my bed.

I lay down and she curls up against my side, her arm around my waist.

"Are you okay with this?" I ask gently. "Do you want me to go get my shirt?"

I feel her face burn against my chest as she blushes. It's a wonder I can feel the difference at all, seeing as I'm already burning up.

"I'm all right," She murmurs. "Are you? Your heart is racing."

"Yeah, well, that has nothing to do with fear," I replied, repeating words similar to the one's she'd said to me in my fear landscape.

Which reminds me.

"Tris, when I was watching during your fear landscape, you were ... being thrown all around the room. . . What  _was_ that fear?"

"I was drowning and being beaten against rocks."

I frown. "You're afraid of drowning?"

"No. I'm afraid of being out of control."

I pause and then speak carefully. "Do you think ... do you think that's why you're afraid of me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Almost everything ... intimate that we've done, I've initiated. When you were the one who grabbed my hand that day, were you afraid?"

"No."

"When you sat on my lap yesterday and kissed me, were you afraid?"

She pauses. "Maybe a little," she says.

"It's because you decided to do those things. And with my lap, well, you were in my arms, I had more control than you. I think that you need to be in control of our physical relationship for a little while," I say slowly.

"I ... don't know. I've never actually ..." She seems afraid I brush the back of my hand along her cheek soothingly.

"It's only me," I tell her. "I'm not judging you. Just relax. Do what feels natural."

She closes her eyes and leans forward, pressing her lips to mine. I respond to the kiss, of course, but I make no move to touch her. She needs to be in control.

She guides my hand to her waist, so I curl my hand, holding her hipbone. She tips her head, deepening the kiss, and I return the enthusiasm. She runs her fingers across my cheeks, into my hair. I am burning, and it is taking all my strength not to touch her more than she wants me to.

She shifts and puts one knee on either side of my hips, bending down to me. I can't think and I can't breathe.

Then she breaks the kiss, her legs moving out from under her as she rests her head on my shoulder, lying on top of me.

"I'm sorry," She breathes. "That was..."

"Don't apologize," I gasp, breathless. She sighs, breathing a gush of hot air over my neck.

She closes her eyes. "I don't like that Eric injected me with that tracking thing today."

"I know." I press my lips into a hard line. "It bothered me. Actually, watching you go through your entire fear landscape bothered me. I might develop a fifth fear, Tris, and it might just be you."

She laughed. "Have you gone in again?"

"Not since we went in together. I don't think I  _can_ go in without you."

"You used to do it all the time."

"It's different now, now that I know what it's like to have you with me." I shrug.

She smiles and presses her face into my neck. I hold her closer. I feel her eyes flutter closed, and a minute later her breathing is even. I sigh and carefully rearrange her so that her head is on my chest instead. I kiss her forehead.

"I love you," I murmur before resting my cheek against her hair and falling asleep myself.

...

Soft fingers trace my cheekbones, painting them with delicious fire.

"Tobias," the most beautiful voice in the world breathes. "Wake up."

The flames press to my forehead—her lips. "Mm," I breathe.

"We have to go to the banquet."

"No."

She laughs and the bed shakes as she gets up. Goosebumps cover my arms immediately. It's too cold to be shirtless without touching her. I get to my feet and go to find my shirt.

"I like your tattoos," she informs me casually as she slides her feet into her shoes. Her cheeks are pink.

"I like yours too," I replied, leaning down and kissing her forehead before putting on my sweatshirt and shoes.

"Thanks," She said as I held the door for her. I wasn't sure if it was for the tattoo compliment or the door.

She watches me carefully as we walk. Can she tell that I'm lighter than air? I have never been happier than I am right now.

When we get to the doors, I smile and gesture for her to go first. I want to kiss her goodbye, but that's impossible now.

I walk in a moment later and go to Lauren immediately.

"What happened to you? Your mood is the entire opposite of the way it was this morning..."

I smile. "Well, I just spent the last two hours snuggling with Tris, so..."

She grins. "You two are so cute. When are you going to go public?"

"Whenever she wants to," I shrug.

Eric obnoxiously taps on the microphone then, and I turn to glare hatefully at him.

"We aren't big on speeches here. Eloquence is for the Erudite." I roll my eyes. Is he forgetting he  _was_ Erudite? "So I'm going to keep this short. It's a new year and we have a new pack of initiates. And a slightly smaller pack of new members. We offer them our congratulations."

Noise erupts and I use the distraction to glance at Tris. She has a small smile on her face. She likes the roaring, the clapping. She belongs here.

My gut tugs as I remember the backup plan I'd formulated—be factionless, find Evelyn for shelter, take care of Tris.

"We believe in bravery. We believe in taking action. We believe in freedom from fear and acquiring the skills to force the bad out of our world so that the good can prosper and thrive. If you also believe in those things, we welcome you."

Tris smiles, and so do I. Eric's a liar and a fake, but I like to believe what he just said.

"Tomorrow, in their first act as members, our top ten initiates will choose their professions, in the order of how they are ranked. The rankings, I know, are what everyone is really waiting for. They are determined by a combination of three scores—the first, from the combat stage of training; the second, from the simulation stage; and the third, from the final evaluation, the fear landscape. The rankings will appear on the screen behind me."

They appeared then, and I grinned hugely.

Tris was first.

My Tris was first.

I looked at her immediately. She's smiling just like me. A weight in her eyes is gone.

"Go to her, you idiot!"

I don't need any more encouraging. I throw Lauren and thankful grin and then I'm fighting my way through the crowd to her.

By the time I make it to her side, her friends are making out. I tap her shoulder and she jumps up and spins around to grin at me.

"You think giving you a hug would give away to much?" I ask.

"You know. I really don't care."

And then her arms are locked around my neck and her lips are on mine and I am a burning man.

For half a second I am frozen in shock. Then my eyes close and my hands go to her waist, pulling her tightly against me. Her lips gently push mine apart and she breathes into my mouth. The entire room is on fire and I don't care. I'm never leaving. My hands slide up her sides to her shoulders. I accidentally brush over the bandage from the bandage from where Eric injected her, and she pulls away from me. I wonder what I did wrong. I couldn't have hurt her  _that_ much.

Her eyes are bulging and she stares at me in horror.

"Tris?"

"Not now," She whispers. "Later, okay?"

I nod. Then I notice that the majority of the room had gone silent. Almost all eyes are on us. I reach out and take her hand in mine.

We'd gone public.


	26. The Awake

"Tris," Christina says, her eyes wide, jaw slack, "Can I talk to you for a second?"

I tighten my fingers around hers and then let go, allowing her to go speak to her friend alone. Tris looks up at me and I nod at her. Christina exhales sharply, grabbing her elbow and tugging her away.

Now insanely out of place, I push my hands into my pockets and resist the urge to go running back to Lauren's side.

"How long has  _that_ been going on?"

I glance over at Will. His eyebrows are raised up and his lips are pressed together.

I shrug.

"You know," He says slowly, "Tris isn't the kind of girl you can just mess around with."

I pull my hands out of my pockets and fold my arms. "Who says I'm messing around?"

"Listen. Tris is a great girl—"

"I know that."

"And," He continues, glaring, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't hurt her."

_You were in my fear landscape._

"I would  _never_ hurt Tris."

"Maybe not physically," His eyebrow arches.

"Listen to me." I step closer to him so that if Christina and Tris return, they won't overhear. "I am in love with her."

He runs a hand down her face. "Just go easy on her."

I put my hands up. "This is all new to me, too."

A hand clamps down on my shoulder and Eric laughs in my ear. My hands clench into fists.

"Well, well, well. Look who finally got the courage to get the girl," he sneered.

I ran my tongue over my teeth. "Get your hand off me."

He laughs and removes his hand. "I'd say it's about time you got some action." He laughs loudly, "But not with  _her_ you won't!"

He knows about her fear. Was he watching the simulation? I dig my fingers into my palm.

"I'm going to ask you to get away from me. If you don't, I'll break your face."

"Hey, Eric," Will pipes up. "Maybe you should leave him alone, he looks kind of—"

My hand sets on fire as Tris returns and slides her fingers against my fist gently, undoing it so she can twine our fingers. I relax.

Eric snickers some more and walks off.

Zeke comes over to high five Uriah, and then he pulls him into a hug for a moment before he clamps my shoulder.

"Hello again, Tris," He says, grinning from ear to ear. "Guess I can't call you Stiff, now, can I?"

She smiles a tiny bit and I feel my eyes widen. "You two have met?"

"No thanks to you," Zeke replies. "My brother took Tris zip lining way back when."

Stupid jealousy burns in my chest. I have nothing to worry about with Zeke's little brother—of course not.  _You can sit on my lap, if you want,_ I hear Uriah's words again. No. She refused him. She's with me. She's mine. I tighten my fingers around hers. She squeezes back.

"Really," I say slowly.

Zeke's smile widens. "You should've come."

I glare at him. Tris runs a finger down my palm, sending sparks up my spine.

There was then a Dauntless-style party which consisted of a lot of noise and drinking and music. I wanted to escape with Tris, but that was impossible.

Zeke thrusts a bottle at me. "Drink up," He slurred.

In the corner of my eye, I notice Tris staring me down. I remember when I got drunk at the chasm.

_You look good, Tris._

"No, thanks."

Tris and Will are supporting a very drunken Christina as we slowly make our way out of the pit.

Tris undoes her arm from Christina's waist for just a moment, and she immediately slides toward the ground. Will isn't  _as_ drunk as Christina, but he's not sober enough to get her home by himself. Tris sighs.

"I can't leave them," She tells me quietly. "I have to take her home."

I nod. "I'll come—"

"No," She says. "Get Zeke home. He's a mess. And try to keep an eye on Uriah, alright?"

I sigh, too. "Okay," I say, leaning down and pressing my lips to hers. She kisses me back and fire lights in my chest. "Be safe," I tell her. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She sighs, her hot breath washing over my face. "You, too."

I watch her leave, dragging them along, and then I go back into the pit to find Zeke.

My eyes open slowly. Was it true? I had gone an entire night without nightmares?

I sit up and stretch. I look at the clock.  _What?_

Lauren should have come for me—she  _always_ comes for me.

But she's likely hung over. I shouldn't worry.

I leave my room and find the halls all to be deserted. I head to Zeke's apartment, worried about him. He was entirely wasted when I dumped him here last night. He's likely lying in his own vomit at this point.

I knock twice and then push open the door. I take a careful breath. It doesn't  _smell_ like he got sick...

His bed was made, too, and I'd dumped him in it last night. That can't be right. He should be hung over. He shouldn't be making beds or leaving his apartment.

I back away slowly, and I slam into someone as soon as I'm out in the hallway.

"Oh, sorry," I turn around, and there's Lauren. Her eyes are entirely glazed over, and my stomach drops to the soles of my feet. Several things make sense all at once.

The serum Eric injected us with.

Erudite.

War.

Tris' face last night.

Tris  _knows._

 _Oh, Dear Lord, please let Tris be okay,_  I think.  _Please tell me she kept her mouth shut and is blending in right now._

I realize there is a long line of people all walking down the hallway. I make my face blank and I begin following them, right behind Lauren.

We eventually end up next to the train tracts, and the train is stopped and initiates are getting on one by one. I let my eyes skim around until I see Tris. She's standing stiffly, but she's most certainly awake. Her jaw twitches and her eyes aren't glazed over.

I know what I am about to do is idiotic. But I don't care. I carefully easy my way in front of Lauren and a few others until it lines up so that I'll be the one to help Tris onto the train.

She slides over slightly, I can see her breaking the pattern, moving toward me.  _That's my girl._

I offer my hand to her and she takes it without looking at me. Sparks fly up my arm now, at the most inappropriate of times. She climbs in and I follow behind her. She stands facing me and her eyes dart up to my face. I try to remain blank—this is key to our survival—but she looks utterly heartbroken as she turns away that I have to show her she's not alone.

I'm awake.

I wrap my fingers around hers, letting the fire pulse between us. She squeezes my hand, and I return the pressure. In my peripheral vision, her shoulders shift and she exhales.

I run my thumb around the back of her hand. She is too tense. She is terrified. That's only reasonable. I wish we could have gotten along last night, that she could have told me her theory—which I don't doubt is being proven true right now—and we could have ran off somewhere, hid anywhere we could, and have been safe.

But it's too late now.

The train stops after a long time. We have to jump off. I need a plan.

Tris' safety is my top priority. Maybe I can fire a few shots at the leaders, distract them enough for her to run—

No.

That'd be a death sentence. I have to get us  _both_ out of here alive. She doesn't know what to do on her own. She'd end up dead even if she made it out.

She runs. She's small, and she can probably ease through the crowd and make it out. My height is a problem, though. Once she's out, I can probably sneak a few surprise shots at anyone who would give me trouble, and then can go after her.

I turn my head to look at Tris, the beginning of our rebellion. She turns to look at me. Our eyes meet. My heart pounds loud and fast. I tell her one word.

"Run."

It's an order, but I don't say it as Four, her instructor. I say it as Tobias, the man who needs her safe because he loves her.

But her face twists into knots. "My family," She says back, and I feel my stomach drop to the soles of my feet. She's right. We can't just run and hide. There are good people here, her family, her friends, who we need to fight for.

If I thought she would listen, I'd tell her to run anyway, tell her I'd take care of it. But she's Tris, and she'd never let me do this on my own.

Then we jump off and I walk in front of her.

I don't let myself look around. If I look around, I'll recognize things. If I recognize things, I'll remember things. And then my face will show my pain and we'll be screwed.

And then we walk into war.

I almost throw up as I see dead council members. Tris' dad is pretty important, isn't he? He can't be dead. I can't imagine Tris if she loses either of her parents . . .

I think of the tattoos on her collarbone. She loves them so much. She'd be crushed. I'm not sure she could recover from that.

If something did happen to her father, I just pray we don't have to march past his body. I can practically see her reaction—a sob tearing from her throat, Tris breaking from the crowd, running to him and sobbing over his body, curling in on herself, getting sick in the street—

And then getting shot for being Divergent.

To make my dire mood worse, a sickeningly familiar voice speaks from just behind me.

"This is insane," Eric goes.

I almost flinch. By the sound of his voice, he should be right beside Tris. My stomach sinks. Does he know? Is  _that_ what he thinks is insane?

"They really can't see us? Or hear us?" I recognize the voice. She's a Dauntless leader. I resist the urge to curse under my breath.  _We're screwed._

"Oh, they can see and hear," Eric says back. "They just aren't processing what they see and hear the same way. They receive commands from our computers in the transmitters we injected them with."

Damn it. Damn  _everything._ I should have stepped up when I could have, I should have been in Eric's position—I should have been the one told to inject them. I could have changed the transmitter to colored water.

"..and carry them out seamlessly," Eric interrupts my mental breakdown.

And then he's in my face and it takes all my strength to keep my hands unclenched.

"Now this is a happy sight," he says. "The legendary Four. No one's going to remember I came in second now, are they? No one's going to ask me, 'What was it like to train with the guy who has only four fears?'"

And to make my life even  _more_ dreadful—which is quite an accomplishment, really—something cold presses to my head. I recognize the cold at once. It's the barrel of a gun.

I'm dead.

How will Tris react to  _that?_ How will she make it out alive without me?

My hand twitches. I debate pulling out my gun and putting a bullet in his brain. But the leader with him wouldn't hesitate to kill me. It'll have been moot.

Almost. If I die killing Eric, would it really be so bad? If anyone deserves death, he does.

"Think anyone would notice if he accidentally got shot?"

"Go ahead," She said and I ground my teeth together. Why does she hate me? I'd never done anything to her! "He's nothing now."

"Too bad you didn't just take Max up on his offer, Four," Eric continues into my ear. "Well, too bad for  _you,_ anyway." He clicks a bullet in place.

I tense, fully prepared to spin around and unarm him, but then something extraordinary happens.

Tris' arm raises and her gun is pressed against Eric's head. I stiffen. Her face is so enraged that for a second, I think she'll just shoot him dead right then. I glance at Eric's little friend. Her face is blank with shock and horror.

"Get your gun away from his head."

A rush runs through my body. For a second I can't control my thoughts, and I'm extremely attracted to fierce Tris with a gun. The idea of her stepping up and protecting me  _again_ is unreasonably appealing.

Then my mind begins functioning again and I feel like such an idiot. A  _gun_ is being pointed at my  _head_ and I'm thinking about how  _attractive_ my  _girlfriend_ is when she's trying to  _save my life._

"You won't shoot me," Eric taunts.

"Interesting theory," She says and I fight back a grin. That's my girl. I am filled with pride. This amazing creature is  _mine._

And I'm an idiot.

She changes her aim at the last second and pulls the trigger, shooting his foot. He cries out and grabs his fresh injury. The cold metal is gone from my head and I'm grabbing my gun and I'm firing at her leg—Lydia, that's her name—I'm shooting Lydia's leg and then fire wraps around my bicep and Tris and I are running.

Once she releases my arm, I grab her hand and we run.

A gunshot goes off time slows down as adrenaline runs through my veins. A gargling sound emerges from Tris' throat and she falls. I stop and turn around to face her. She's lying on the ground and my heart stopped beating. If she's dead, I die now. If she's dead, I offer myself to them.

She lifts her head. "Run!" She cries out.

I almost roll my eyes at the cliché—that's how relieved I am that she's alive.

She's alive, but she is  _shot._

"No." I carefully help her up and wrap my arm around her waist. I can't run with her—not now. They've gained on us and she's in pain.

"Divergent rebels," Eric says, balancing on one foot, the blood gone from his face.

I debate raising my gun and putting a bullet through his brain  _now._ But I'm holding Tris up and my aim wouldn't be as great with one arm. And he has backup that would shoot at me and maybe miss and hit her.

"Surrender your weapons."


	27. The Simulation

Tris leans heavily into me and I tighten my hold on her, slightly stunned that somehow—even here, now, in the most dire of situations—the fire still flared.

"Well, send some of them  _back_ on the train, then. It needs to be well guarded, it's the most important part—I'm not talk—I have to go." Jeanine shuts her phone off and her eyes focus on Tris, making my stomach twitch uncomfortably.

"Divergent rebels," says Tyler, a fellow Dauntless.

"Yes, I can see that." She removes her glasses. " _You,_ " She points a finger at Tris, "I expected. All the trouble with your aptitude test made me suspicious from the beginning. But  _you..."_  She shakes her head and looks at me. I stiffen and narrow my eyes. "You, Tobias—or should I call you Four?—managed to elude me. Everything about you checked out: test results, initiation simulations, everything. But here you are nonetheless. Perhaps you could explain to me how that is?"

"You're the genius," I reply, my voice cold and flat. "Why don't you tell me?"

She smirks. I grind my teeth. "My theory is that you really do belong in Abnegation. That your Divergence is weaker." She smiles hugely and Tris stiffens in my arms, and I can hear her grinding her teeth, too.

"Your powers of deductive reasoning are stunning. Consider me awed."

I can feel Tris glance at me. I realize it's been a long time since I've been this Four near her.

"Now that your intelligence has been verified, you might want to get on with killing us." I close my eyes, made nervous by the way Tris was watching me. "You have a lot of Abnegation leaders to murder, after all."

Tris wobbles unsteadily and I tighten my arm around her, holding her up.

"Don't be silly. There is no rush. You are both here for an extremely important purpose. You see, it perplexed me that the Divergent were immune to the serum that I developed, so I have been working to remedy that. I thought I might have, with the last batch, but as you know, I was wrong. Luckily I have another batch to test."

"Why bother?" Tris demands. Her voice is still a little weaker than normal, but there is something fierce about it.

Jeanine smirks at Tris and I run my tongue over my teeth. I don't want her to touch my Tris, I don't want her to smile at My Tris, I don't want her look at my Tris, I don't want her to even  _think_ about my Tris.

"I have had a question since I began the Dauntless project, and it is this." She runs her fingertips along her desk as she walked around it. "Why are most of the Divergent weak-willed, God-fearing nobodies from  _Abnegation,_ of all factions?"

My teeth clamp shut as this revelation. I'd never really thought about it.

"Weak-willed," I snort at her. If she thinks I'm going to go easy on her and give her  _anything,_ she's got another thing coming. I'll be damned if I lay down and let her kill us. "It requires a  _strong_ will to manipulate a simulation, last time I checked. Weak-willed is mind-controlling an army because it's too hard for you to train one yourself."

"I am not a fool. A faction of intellectuals is no army. We are tired of being dominated by a bunch of self-righteous idiots who reject wealth and advancement, but we couldn't do this on our own. And your Dauntless leaders were all too happy to oblige me if I guaranteed them a place in our new, improved government.

"Improved!" Yes, having a city of brain-washed servants is surely an  _improvement._

"Yes, improved. Improved, and working toward a world in which people will live in wealth, comfort, and prosperity."

I am about to insert a comment about being  _comfortable_ as a  _slave,_ but Tris pops in before I can.

"At whose expense? All that wealth,. . . doesn't come from nowhere." Her voice is slow and pained and I shift my hold on her, trying to take any weight that was still on her feet off and onto my arm. It's a good thing she's small. I'm strong, but not strong enough to support a full-sized woman's entire weight for an extensive period of time.

"Currently, the factionless are a drain on our resources. As is Abnegation. I am sure that once the remains of our old faction are absorbed into the Dauntless army, Candor will cooperate and we will finally be able to get on with things."

I close my eyes and for a minute I let my brain run over what would have happened if Tris and I had stayed in Abnegation instead. If we had fallen in love there—which I'm sure we would have if I had the courage to leave the house from time to time—if we had started our lives together. I can see our town suddenly erupting into chaos. I can see myself taking her and her family and running. I can see her family slowing us down, getting killed, sending her into a despair. Then we'd be captured, put in Jeanine's army, never allowed to be ourselves again...

"Get on with things," I spit, making my voice louder. I refuse to go unheard. My blood boils. The whole nightmare I just dreamt up could be  _real_ for a lot of Abnegation. "Make no mistake. You will be dead before the day is our, you—"

"Perhaps," She says, cutting of the string of insults that were about to start running off my tongue. "If you could control your temper, you would not be in this situation to begin with, Tobias."

I grind my teeth.  _My temper has nothing to do with this!_ "I'm in this situation because you put me here the second you orchestrated an attack against innocent people!"

"Innocent people," She laughs bitterly and my hands clench into fists. "I find that a little funny, coming from you. I would expect Marcus's son to understand that not all those people are innocent."

My stomach drops to my feet.  _How the hell does she know everything?_ It was one thing when she knew my name, but my past, with Marcus?

"Can you tell me honestly that you wouldn't be happy to discover that your father was killed in the attack?"

"No," I said, my jaw clenched tight. "But at least his evil didn't involve the widespread manipulation of an entire faction and the systematic murder of every political leader we have."

His evil was taken out on two people. And both made it out alive.

I meet her gaze and raise my eyebrows, a challenge. I have the feeling we could do this all day. She'd never run out of ways to make her seem less evil, and I'd never run out of sarcastic responses.

She hadn't expected me to defend Marcus in any shape or form. She expected my hatred for him to make us allies. She thought she'd found my weak spot, that she could make me waver using him.

"What I was going to say," She said uncomfortably, "is that soon, dozens of the Abnegation and their young children will be my responsibility to keep in order, and it does not bode well for me that a large number of them may be Divergent like yourselves, incapable of being controlled by the simulations."

Ah, yes. She's made nervous by the fact that there may be children she can't brainwash into becoming evil.

"Therefore, it was necessary that I develop a new form of simulation to which they are not immune. I have been forced to reassess my own assumptions. That is where you come in. You are correct to say that you are strong-willed. I cannot control your will. But there are a few things I can control."

Tris leans further into me as Jeanine turns to face us. I am not sure if it is fear or pain, but she presses her temple against my shoulder firmly. I tighten my hold on her again.

"I can control what you see and hear. So I created a new serum that will adjust your surroundings to manipulate your will. Those who refuse to accept our leadership must be closely monitored."

It no longer feels like there is blood in my body. It feels as though ice and hatred run through my veins instead. Why didn't anyone try to stop her? Why is it up to us? What is  _wrong_ with Max for agreeing to this?

"You will be the first test subject, Tobias." She says my name almost fondly and it makes the hatred that much stronger. I want to put a bullet right between her eyes.

"Beatrice, however. . ." She smiles and the way she says Tris' name is worse than the pleasantry in mine. It's much worse. She says it as if 'Beatrice' is a dog about to be put down. "You are too injured to be of much use to me, so your execution will occur—"

The rest of Jeanine's sentence vanishes as my world abruptly stops spinning. I can hear my heartbeat and the room turns at awkward angles. My stomach is at the bottom of the Chasm somewhere. A sweat breaks out over my skin. I can feel myself begin to tremble.

_No._

All of Marcus's cruelty, the years of fear, all of it . . . It's nothing compared to the way I feel at this god-awful moment.

Tris' eyes are looking at mine, I can feel it, but I can't meet her gaze. Not when I feel this nauseated.

"No," I manage aloud. My voice shakes. "I would rather die."

 _Kill me._ Just kill me, _please._

""I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice in the matter."

 _No._ She wants to kill my Tris.

I have to kill her. I  _want_ to kill her. It's not like my fear landscape. There is no dread. I would  _love_ to kill Jeanine Matthews right now. I have to try. It could get me killed, but then I wouldn't have to live under her simulations knowing the love of my life is dead.

I grab my Tris' face in my hands and slam my mouth down on hers. My body sets on fire and the kiss is tense, too tense, but the fire is reassuring. The burn means she's alive, she's with me, and she's okay.

I let go of her reluctantly and she leans against the wall for support. I tense my muscles and launch myself forward, wrapping my hands around Jeanine's neck, pressing my thumbs into her throat. If I can apply just the right amount of pressure before her guards get to me—

Tris starts screaming, and I know she is not afraid for Jeanine's sake, which means the guards are coming.

Two guards grab onto me then and yank me away from her, throwing me to the ground. Pain lurches through me as they kneel on my shoulders and push my face into the ground. I manage to look off to the side enough to see Tris dive toward me—oh, my Tris, even though she's got a bullet in her, she's still worried about protecting  _me—_ and a guard grabs her by her shoulders and throws her against the wall. She doesn't even flinch, despite the fact that there's a  _bullet_ in the shoulder they just grabbed.

Tris isn't looking at me anymore, and I can hear Jeanine opening and closing drawers. I'm screwed.

I refuse not to fight.

I grind my teeth and throw my elbow into the guard's face, but all that does is get a gun slammed into the side of my head. While stars dance behind my eyelids, I feel a familiar sting in my neck.

I am very uncomfortable. Someone is holding me to the ground. Why?

"Let him up," says a voice. It's a voice of authority, and whoever has me pinned listens.

I get to my feet and look around. How did I  _get_ here? What  _is_ this place? Why don't I remember anything?

"Tobias! Tobias!"

That's my name. Something in my brain tells me that, although I don't recall ever having heard it before. I turn my head.

"He doesn't know you."

The girl calling my name is small and she appears to be sickly. Her face is abnormally pale, there's blood all over her shirt. She's tiny, probably thirteen or fourteen years old. Her blue eyes are clouded with pain. Her voice was old, however. Something about her screams enemy at me.

My eyes narrow at the threat I feel coming from her. I go toward her and wrap my hand around her small throat.

Someone grabs me and pulls me off her. Why? She's a threat!

"The simulation manipulates him," the authority voice speaks again. "By altering what he sees—making him confuse enemy with friend."

The words are senseless to me. Who are they talking about? What simulation?

She talks for a while longer about simulations and independence and mindless soldiers while I continue to struggle against the men holding me back. I don't understand. I just want to eliminate the threat!

"Send him to the control room. We'll want a sentient being there to monitor things and, as I understand it, he used to work there."

"And take  _her_ to room B13." She gestures to the threat.

They take me into a different room and I relax a little once she's no longer in sight. They stay with me, guiding me into a room with a bunch of screens and computers. For a second, I stare blankly at them, and then a flood of knowledge flows through me. I know exactly what to do. I sit behind the desk and begin working.


	28. The Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently Four was pretty absent in this section of the book because I combined chapters 35-37

The guards leave me alone and I stare at the screens. It looks like there are cameras on every inch of this place.

There is a war. I see a bunch of armed people dressed in black marching. They shoot at random bystanders.

Then on a different camera, I see the girl—the threat—drowning. I blink in confusion and watch as she goes limp in the water, oxygen bubbles come out of her mouth. What happened?

The room is dark, I can't see much, but a figure is pounding the glass, breaking it open. Water pours out and the threat gets to her feet and runs off with the person who saved her. I squint hard. Her rescuer is a middle aged woman, and she looks like the girl.

I grab the walkie-talkie off my desk and push the button.

"Bizarre activity in room B13," I report. "The girl that was drowning in there was freed and is now on the move with an older female, presumably her mother. They are northbound toward A4."

"Copy," A male voice says back, and then I see a bunch of soldiers depart their line and begin running north. At the rate and angle they're going, they will intersect the girl and her mother soon.

I watch as the girl barely manages to stay in camera view. Is there a blind spot? Then I see her mother get shot. The girl crouches over as a sob chokes through her. She stays like that for a brief moment, and then she's gone, out of the camera view. I pick up my walkie-talkie.

"Threat's mother eliminated," I say. "I lost visual on the threat."

An angry voice bubbled through, "What do you  _mean_ you lost visual?" I realize belatedly that it's that woman I was with earlier.

"I don't know, she's not on the screen anymore! She found a blind spot."

She makes an annoyed noise and I heard her walkie-talkie disconnect. I lean back in my chair and watch the screen.

I watch the cameras for an immeasurably period of time. The chaos in the city gets progressively worse, to the point where I can't even make out who is dying and who is winning. The screens are turning red. I feel a little nauseas, so I turn and ignore the screens.

"Four!" My walkie-talkie beeps. "Can you get visual on the girl?"

I turn back to the screens and begin carefully studying each screen desperately, trying to find her.

"No. No, I can't get visual on the girl."

The man curses. His voice is tired and rough, and a mental imagine suddenly appears in my head to go along with his voice. He has lots of piercings and a foot injury. His name is Eric. Eric and I are friends.

"If you ever spot a single strand of that blonde hair, you tell me, you understand?"

"Yes, sir, I understand," I say, trying to keep my eyes peeled and on every camera.

"It doesn't make  _sense._ How does she know where all the blind spots are?"

"I don't know."

"When I get my hands on her," He laughs. "I'll kill every last member of her family and make her watch. Or better yet, I'll make  _her_ kill them!"

I frown. "That's a bit cruel, don't you think?"

"Stay out of it! Just tell me if you see her, got it?"

"Yes."

"Copy." I hear the click of his device being disconnected.

Suddenly a different device clicks on. "I HAVE VISU—"

Gunfire sounds, and the guard's voice cuts off abruptly.

 _"Where is she?"_ Eric snarls. "She's killing our men!  _Where is she?"_

Then I see her. She's standing over a fallen guard, her face twisted into something of physical pain and emotional distress.

"I've got visual," I say, trying to talk quickly. "She's on screen C49. She isn't alone. She's getting into an elevator with a middle aged man—her father, possibly."

"I need two guards at the doors of every elevator on every floor!  _Now!"_

I tense my muscles, watching the screen with a nervous gut.

"She's going up," I announce.

"TWO GUARDS AT EVERY UPPER LEVEL ELEVATOR DOORS, ONE AT THE LOWER FLOORS. LEAVE HER NO ESCAPE ROUTS, IS THAT CLEAR?"

I watched security scatter. The elevator stops. "Movement has stopped on the eighth floor," I say.

The doors open, and I watch chaos erupt. I watch her father get murdered, and I can't help but feel a little bad for the girl. She's watched both her parents die today.

I take my eyes off the screen. She's in the security's hands now. They'll eliminate her.

"Good job, Four." Eric says through the walkie-talkie. "I'm proud of you. We'll take care of her from here."

"Good," I say flatly. "It shouldn't have taken so long. She's one girl."

"She's a fighter, Four. This wasn't easy. You did well."

"Thank you."

He laughs and then the line disconnects again. I close my eyes against exhaustion and the blood and death on the screens.

"Tobias."


	29. The Memories

I turn my head to look at the girl. Is she kidding? What is wrong with our guards? How is she still alive?

I draw my gun. It's time to end this, to end her.

"Drop your weapon," I tell her.

"Tobias, you're in a simulation."

I steady my aim. "Drop your weapon or I'll fire."

She bends over.

"Drop your weapon!"

"I did," She says, and I lower my eyes to the ground just long enough to make sure she wasn't lying.

She wasn't.

I have to kill her. She's causing too much trouble. She's a threat.

She launches herself at me so suddenly that I don't have time to pull the trigger. Her fingers wrap around my wrist.

She's weak and small. I should have thrown her to the ground.

I would have, but suddenly fire raced from my wrist and up my arm. My muscles twitched in response to the unexpected flames and I pulled the trigger. She ducks and I miss. My arm is burning. What is  _wrong_ with his girl? She's undefeatable  _and_ she's burning me just by  _touching_ me!

She swings up and kicks me in the ribs. I gasp at the blow as the fire suddenly burns hotter. This time it's a familiar burn, she's twisting my wrist at an uncomfortable angle. The gun drops out of my grasp.

She dives for it, so I grab her and throw her to the side. Her eyes meet mine, and for one bizarre moment, the pain in her face is a punch to my stomach.

Then it's gone and my fist is slamming into her jaw.

She kicks the gun away from me, and then she swings her leg up and kicks me in the stomach. The air leaves me lungs. Someone taught this girl how to fight.

I grab her foot and yank. She falls, landing on a bloody shoulder. I pull my foot back, and she looks up at me, helpless, and for a minute I hesitate.

Then she's diving for the gun, so I'm grabbing a fistful of her hair.

She touches my wrist. The fire shoots through my arm again.

"Tobias," she said, and for a second I feel dizzy.

_But you're older than I am ... Tobias._

She's not saying those words now, but she has before. They make no sense, but the combination of the heat of her touch and those words have my pulse doing something weird.

My heart races.

She spins around and kicks me again, getting out of my grasp, and getting her hands on the gun. She points it at me.

"Tobias. I know you're in there somewhere."

 _You were in my fear landscape._ She stands up. My head is spinning.

"Tobias, please. Please. See me."

_You're afraid of me?_

_Not of you. Of being with you—with anyone._

I move toward her on shaky legs. What is this? Was I—were we...?

No. She's evil, a threat, I wouldn't—would I?

"Please see me, Tobias, please!"

I have a sudden flashback. But it's not a moment I can see, it's a feeling.

I am abruptly very aware of how perfectly her body would fit against mine, of the place my hands belong on her hips, the way her lips are soft and they move in perfect synchronization with mine.

As if this isn't confusing enough, she suddenly holds the gun out for me. She's letting me take her weapon.

I grab it and push it against her head. I can do this. I can kill her and end this.

I can hear the way Eric's voice will sound when I tell him I was the one that killed her. He'll be so proud.

But I can also picture her eyes on me as I throw knives at her head, as she looks at me with unyielding trust in her gaze.

I click the bullet in place and she closes her eyes. I put my finger on the trigger. Her face is twisted with fear.

But I remember sitting on a train with her in my lap, her fingers in my hair, my heart racing harder than ever before, and that bizarre fire was there.

And I remember holding her hand.

And I can't kill her.

But I need to.

She tenses. So do I.

Inhale, brace yourself. Exhale, pull trigger.

I remember teaching her this.

I remember pushing my hand to her stomach and teaching her how to fight.

I can't kill her.


	30. The End

I hesitate and she takes advantage of this. "Tobias, it's me."

She moves toward me and puts her arms around me, pressing her head against my chest.

The fire it starts in me is familiar.

She's familiar.

Because I know her.

The world spins faster as everything comes back.

I remember every cruel whip of the belt, every burning touch from Tris, every hateful comment from Eric.

I remember watching her parents die.

I remember ratting her out to Eric.

I remember fighting her.

I remember almost killing her.

I almost killed her, I almost killed my Tris.

The gun falls limply out of my hand as the realization sets in.

How is she touching me? Why doesn't she hate me? She should hate me. No, she shouldn't hate me. I should be  _dead._ There should be a bullet in my head right now. She had the gun. She should have done it.

But I can't think about that now, because my Tris is alive and I am grabbing her way too harshly and I'm pulling her against me and I'm breathing her in and I am bathing in fire and I am loving it.

She cries out. I am hurting her.

"Tris," I say, and a huge weight is lifted off my chest. I lean down and crush my lips against hers. I lift her off the ground and pin her against my body. No matter how close she is, she is too far and that is the way it will always be now.

I am trembling against her, and I can't tell which one of us it is that smells like sweat, and we're both clawing at each other almost painfully, but it is perfect because Tris is here and in my arms and I will never let her go again.

I put her down, but I don't stop touching her. I memorize her face with my hands, tracing her features and feeling pain shoot through me. I almost killed her.

I make a noise that resembles a moan, and then I'm kissing her again, because she's mine, and I love her, and I will never let anything separate us ever again.

When we break the kiss, she grabs onto me and cries into my shirt. I stroke her hair and hold her close and take deep breaths. She leans into me and I support all her weight again.

"How did you do it?" She whispers.

"I don't know. I just heard your voice."

We stand there and look at the screens and I feel sick to my stomach. Why didn't I find some way to break out of the damned simulation sooner?

"Was  _I_ running the simulation?" I don't remember receiving specific commands, I just did things. It was almost automatic.

"I don't know if you were running it so much as monitoring it," Tris replies. "It's already complete. I have no idea how, but Jeanine made it so it could work on its own."

I shake my head. "It's . . . incredible. Terrible, evil . . . but incredible."

She looks at one of the screens. "Tobias, now!"

I race to one of the computers and begin quickly entering in deactivation codes.

"Tobias," She says.

I ignore her, pressing more buttons. If I remember correctly, this should free them—

Ha. I exhale as the Dauntless on the screen relax. They drop weapons and begin having fights and break downs and all normal stuff that happens to people who just murdered innocent people.

Tris sits down in relief and I crouch next to the computer.

"I have to get the data or they'll just start the simulation again."

"Got it." I hold it out for her. It wouldn't be unreasonable if she didn't trust me yet, so I wanted to give it to her.

"We have to leave."

"Yes, we do." I wrap my arm around her. "Let's go."

As we walk, we come across her father's dead body. She makes a noise and she turns her head away and throws up against the wall. I keep one arm around her for support and the other holds her hair back from her face. Pain goes through me. My poor Tris.

When we get outside, a boy runs at Tris. I let her go and she falls into his arms. I recognize him. He's her brother.

"Dad?" He asks.

She shakes her head silently.

"Well," he chokes, "he would have wanted it that way."

I am walking away, giving them their privacy when I see him. I freeze. Nausea rolls through me.

Marcus walks over to me and wraps his arms around me.

_This is for you own good._

Fear makes my body shake.

Marcus is wearing a belt.

Why wasn't he killed? Why did  _both_ of Tris' parents die and  _he_ had to survive?

"Son," he breathes, and I try not to burst into tears or throw up down his back.

"Hey!" Tris maneuvers her little body so that her spine is pressed firmly against my chest and she's pushing Marcus away from me. My heart beats fast. That's my girl.

"Hey. Get away from him."

I am breathing down the back of her neck, inhaling her scent to calm myself down.

"Stay away," She says firmly and something very pleasant and warm goes through me, along with a dull ache in my chest. I almost killed her and she's protecting me.

"Beatrice, what are you doing?" Her brother asks, confused.

"Tris," I murmur. If she thinks I'm going to let that monster put his hands on her, she is wrong.

"Not all those Erudite articles were full of lies," She spits.

"What are you talking about? I don't know what you've been told, Beatrice, but—"

I almost throw up when he says her name. I open my mouth, fully prepared to give him an earful. He isn't allowed to look at her, think of her, speak to her, or even speak  _of_ her.

"The only reason I haven't shot you yet is because he's the one who should get to do it. Stay away from him or I'll decide I no longer care."

In that moment, I've never even heard of anything half as strong as the love I feel for Tris. I wrap my hands around her arms and squeeze gently.

She stares at Marcus until he looks away. "We have to go," I say, my voice shaking. "The train should be here any second."

My jaw clenches tight as we walk. I don't want Marcus near her.

"Sorry," She whispers.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." I reach out for her hand and sliding my fingers between hers. The fire helps calm me down. This is my  _Tris_ that I was worried about. She'd put a bullet through his brain if he debated touching her. I trust that. I trust her.

"If we take the train in the opposite direction, out of the city instead of in, we can get to Amity headquarters. That's here the others went." Tris says, already talking strategy.

"What about Candor? What do you think they'll do?"

No one answers him. We stand by the train. Tris leans heavily onto my side, so I shift and swing her up so that I'm holding her bridal style in my arms. She doesn't protest, just rests her head on my shoulder and lets me hold her.

I hold her until the train comes, and then I take a deep breath and put her down so she can get on.

We all sit on the train, I sit right beside Tris, her brother across from us. I use my body as an unbreakable wall between Tris and my father and Peter. I didn't think much of Peter's presence, but that doesn't mean I want him near her.

I wrap my arm around her shoulders and we pull out knees in, making a box of just the two of us. The tight space doesn't bother me.

"My parents," She whispers. "They died today. They died for  _me."_

"They loved you," I tell her quietly. "To them there was no better way to show you."

She nods and looks at me carefully, her eyes memorizing the line of my jaw.

"You nearly died today. I almost shot you. Why didn't you shoot me, Tris?"

"I couldn't do that." Her eyes meet mine and warmth goes through my body. "It would have been like shooting myself."

I can feel pain twist my features. I lean closer to her, letting our lips touch while I talk. "I have something to tell you."

I take a deep breath while she looks down, her fingers tracing my veins and tendons in my hands. I shiver against the fire it paints. Her eyes meet mine and give me the courage to speak.

"I might be in love with you," I say stupidly, making the words come out wrong. There was no  _'might'_ about it. Oh, well. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though."

"That's sensible of you," She smiles at me. "We should find some paper so you can make a list or a cart or something."

I laugh quietly and run my nose along her jaw. I kiss the sensitive skin behind her ear. "Maybe I'm already sure and I just don't want to frighten you."

She laughs gently. "Then you should know better."

"Fine," I reply. "Then I love you."

Something in me sets free with the words. She kisses me, lighting my body on fire. I kiss her and hold her to me, ignoring the eyes on us, ignoring the fear of the unknown future, ignoring the past we are leaving behind. I kiss her for the promise of us.

When we break away, she lays her head on my shoulder, pulling the hard drive, turning it in her hands slowly until she falls asleep. I rest my cheek on her hair and hold her close, but I do not fall asleep. I meet Caleb's—that's his name, I think—eyes. His are narrowed at me and I can tell he's not my biggest fan.

I arch my eyebrow at him, a challenge. I know it's disrespectful—I  _am_  dating his sister—but I don't like the way he looks at me. He looks at me as if I am just a young Marcus.

I hold my Tris as the train leads us down a path with a questionable end. I can't guarantee we'll be safe. I can't guarantee that we'll all get along. But Tris and I will be together, and we can survive anything as long as that is true.


End file.
